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Of my good friends Freud, Sir Paul, Monica and Cheryl

I have often thought of Freud when sitting in Meeting for Worship on Sunday mornings. He, or maybe it was one of his cohorts, I should know given that this was the subject of my 60+/- page senior thesis at Earlham, had a theory that subconsciously, our life goal is to return to the happiest place we ever knew - our mother's womb.  I know. Kinda creepy. But so was Freud sometimes. And Meeting feels like that to me sometimes. It feels like a warm, welcoming, loving, enclosed place, walled off from, but not oblivious to, the noise all around us.  And it can e specially feel that way when it gets particularly loud outside. This past Sunday for instance, there was a lot of noise coming off route 30 - sirens, motorcycles, etc. At times it almost seemed like a parade out there, but a very fast moving one. A t one point I realized that the more the noise outside is amplified, the more it amplifies the silence in our little Meetinghouse. And that leads to one of the greatest cha

Oh, what a lucky man

I wrote this a few weeks ago but didn't want to post it until I let some time go by so I could think about it some more and to see if my feelings would change. Spoiler alert - they didn't: 21 years ago almost to the day, in August of 1998, Cheryl moved in to my house in Thorndale with her two awesome daughters, Elissa, age 12 and Evelyn, age 5.  And on that day, my life would change forever. My bachelorhood ended and my life as I always imagined and fervently hoped it would become, began. Two years later, Trevor was born, and at some point, I remember telling Cheryl that coming home from work each day, and opening the door to that house, felt like Dorothy opening her door to Munchkinland, not because of the size of the inhabitants, and not because of the gingham dress and sparkly ruby slippers I was usually wearing, but because I was moving from my very satisfying, if often uneventful, dare I say dull, life of black and white, into a world of color, imagination, surprises,

Indeed - and much thanks to my readers to such an extent and for their convene as well!

I find myself often torn (Have you ever found yourself? Other maybe than when you was lost? Have you ever been torn? Gosh I hope not.) between wanting more people to see my posts (validation, after all!) and wishing I didn't know if anyone read them, or who read them, so I could write ever more freely about my often wacky and revealing (oh - the intrigue!) thoughts. Other than from devoted reader Becca, I rarely get any comments on here, and since there is no "like" function, it's entirely possible that the handful of people who have signed up to see my posts the day they are written via auto-email actually are horrified by what they read and go by the dictum (Dictum?! Hell, I damn near killed him!) that if you can't say anything nice, you should keep your damn mouth shut/keep your fingers off the keyboard. But there are some incredibly supportive comments that I have heretofore (And just how far is it from heretofore?!) not posted, surely completely out of s

Be the difference

I love love. I like likes. I hate hate. But I am not indifferent about indifference.  Get involved. Make a difference.

Of bright and scary brains

Cheryl tells me that I need to unpack the post below a little (which is a nice way of saying she couldn't figure out what the heck I was trying to say). It is a little dense, I admit, moving too quickly from one thought to another without appropriate thought-linkage. The awkward (poorly explained) transition is here: " And thus, back to the quote, which I had always aligned with those who are in a position of great financial wealth.... For of those to whom much is given, much is expected. And so, conveniently, self-servingly, I wondered: for those among us who are just occasionally jerks and not consistently one, when we say something hurtful, does it sting more than someone from whom much less is expected?  The twist is moving from viewing that statement in terms of wealth to viewing it in terms of respect and positive personal attributes. If someone says something about me, but I don't respect them to begin with (think certain Presidents or bosses), it
"For those to whom much is given, much is expected." - President John Kennedy (or Luke 12:48: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.")   This past Sunday, that thought kept trying to sneak, eventually successfully, into my large head. It kept trying to squeeze in there among the noise generated by an interaction I'd had two nights earlier with someone who means very much to me (No, not Cheryl), when she misunderstood a few texts I'd sent her, thinking I was being uncaring, when in fact, the intent was the direct opposite. (One of many reasons I hate texting, so maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophesy.) As I tortured myself that morning, reliving what I'd done, trying to figure the best way to make things right, I must have paused long enough to give some legroom to John and Luke's words. I am a sensitive guy. For better and worse, and to the possible surprise of some folks who have heard me be too blun
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I have a confession to make that, no surprise, puts me far outside the mainstream of current thought. I hate memes. I hate memes for the same reason I hate clichés: they are lazy. Well, I don't know if they are lazy so much as the person using them is.  But...now that I've admitted that, I'll also admit to having been inspired by one. This one:   I saw that on the facebook page of one of my friends, whose page seems to generally consist of nothing but memes, and I read it, paused, and went on to something else. Then, about 3 days later, I woke up at precisely 6:10am (unusually early for me), and I had this thought coming out of whatever dream I'd just had: If you are perplexed by what decision to make with some pressing issue in your life, the answer should always be:   Choose Love.  And if that answer doesn't fit, then neither the question, nor the answer, are really all that important.

A Valen-timely message for my girl

I realized the other day, as I heard someone pontificating at great length, that the longer someone talks, the less I hear them. And later, as I was reveling in my proud observation, I pondered it further to realize that it's also true of food - the longer I eat something that I really love, the less I appreciate it. I went on to realize it applies to a great many things - when I bought my first house, I remember sitting in my car in the driveway and looking up at it in wonder; when I first buy a car, I love admiring it and discovering new things I love about it; when I stare at beautiful scenery, same thing; but eventually in each case the beauty and my wonder and my admiration begins to fade. But...I then went on to realize that the longer I live, the more I like it and the less I take it for granted...and the more I want of it. And the longer I'm a dad, the more I recognize after 21 years of it, that it's my favorite thing ever. And most importantly, the longe