Devil’s Advocate
Albert Einstein famously said: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” To play the devil’s advocate could there not be a few other alternatives? Perhaps not everything is miraculous but then some things are? Or perhaps […]
Grateful Live
Apocryphal or not, the story is told of how Pete Townshend’s grandmother, hard of hearing, would query about the names of (rock) bands her grandson liked with the oft-repeated: the who? The Detours changed their name and the rock band The Who was launched. The Warlocks? Their name took a detour as well to […]
The Color of Money
I don’t know how many of the football players of color at the University of Missouri are majoring in economics but they certainly understood the playbook of the greatest American coach in the history of civil rights. In his final speech, Martin Luther King provides a lesson about the power of money as a tool […]
Circles of Trust
A few years ago a student began to advocate for us to use round tables for classes at KE. She was motivated by two factors: she wanted to be able to hear everyone and see everyone (and be heard and seen by everyone) in class. She offered to pay for a round table. It turned […]
Seeking You
“Seek and you shall find what you seek is seeking you.” Common to stories such as The Treasure Under the Bridge (Rebbe Nachman), The Alchemist (Paul Coelho) and The Wizard of OZ (Frank Baum) is coming to find that what is sought after is already there—already present but just unseen. The heroine or hero could […]
Altering Moderation
On Monday August 24th 2015 history was made. One billion people used Facebook. Even with the exponential population growth that means one out of every 7 people on the planet was on Facebook that day. Considering that less than half the human population has internet access the number is even more staggering. And remember Facebook […]
Sensible Sacredness
Yesterday was a day at the San Diego zoo. The highlights were the bears, the Pandas and Koalas (marsupials misnamed as bears). All were fast asleep (the Koalas sleep up to 20 hours a day) except for 3 year old Panda Xiao Liwu who was busy eating one bamboo shoot after another. He was mesmerizing, […]
Q is for Question
It has been my custom to reward good questions my children ask with $5. Over the years it has cost me a bundle and I am now gearing up for the next round with Eva and Isabel turning four. For my older children, the monetary reward became quite secondary to the desire to have asked […]
Strange Fruit
There is a confederacy growing in the United States whose unified strength will not only lower that flag but have it removed from South Carolina and other southern states—the flag being the emblem of prejudicial states of mind. Hate is a very active energy. If the new confederacy is to overcome hatred it must remain […]
Telling Stories
Jonesborough, Tennessee is a sleepy bed & breakfast town that every year hosts an international festival of story tellers. People sit under huge tents and in a revivalist fashion do what small children the world over enjoy—a good story. I have a story from Jonesborough—not one I heard, one that I experienced. It has […]