Recently, I performed the stage role of an elderly grandfather for a gathering of my extended family over the Christmas holiday, and enjoyed having the opportunity to express through a theatrical scene, the importance of giving serious consideration to our contributions to the well-being of our family, and to acknowledge both the challenges and the … Continue reading Grandfathers And Grandchildren
As many of my regular readers may recall, back in 2012, my family and I suffered the personal loss of our dear brother, Michael, and at that time, our personal experiences surrounding that loss, and having to endure the profound sadness that accompanied those events, presented us with an unprecedented challenge of finding a path … Continue reading The Perspective of Time and Love
I found myself traveling today along the rural back roads near my home, on my way back from visiting with my children, and I had the rare opportunity to enjoy a pleasant drive through brilliant sunshine and vibrant blue skies, surrounded by farmland and the exquisite greens of a late summer afternoon. My heart has … Continue reading Why God Sent Us Mozart
January has flown by at the speed of light it seems, and I have only today been able to find an opportunity to sit quietly at my desk and contemplate this posting--the first of the new year. It has been a tumultuous time for us all here in America over the past several months, and … Continue reading Writer’s Are Often At A Loss For Words
In the Review section of the WSJ this weekend in an article by Frank Wilczek, he casually suggested that it shouldn't be so difficult to accept, intuitively, that life and mind emerge from matter, as if we were all just somehow mistaken or deluded about the source of life and mind. Wilczek shared the Nobel … Continue reading Emergent Realities
Another day has brought a transformation in perception and an alteration in my experience of winter's wallop... A stark contrast in the illuminated brilliance of the morning and a striking difference in the play of light as I opened my door... The palm tree near the window basked in the warmth of the sunlight, which … Continue reading What A Difference A Day Makes
In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner addressed important elements surrounding the "poet's, the writer's duty:" "I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work – a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of … Continue reading A Universal Spiritual Perspective
In my previous post, I wrote about author Richard Brautigan, whose success in the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's brought him great notoriety and financial rewards for a time. His tendency to engage in a variety of self-destructive behaviors, and a degree of recklessness in attending to his own well-being, over time, ultimately led … Continue reading Crossroads
The evolution of life on our planet has produced an extraordinary variety and diversity of species, and the paths followed by many of the branches on the tree of life have held sway for millions of years before ending completely or splitting off into whole new species. The ability of each branch to continue into … Continue reading Evolution of Cognition
"Many theories of the origin of life have been proposed, but since it's hard to prove or disprove them, no fully accepted theory exists," --Diana Northup, a cave biologist at the University of New Mexico. Robert Shapiro, a chemist at New York University thinks "...life started with molecules that were smaller and less complex than … Continue reading In The Beginning
John's Consciousness 