Hopeful Thinking

    A teenager once told me he was inheriting his uncle’s yacht. Knowing the kid, I sadly didn’t believe him. But it didn’t matter. He had a record of somewhat alternative truths, each relatively harmless. I told him I thought he’d look real cool at the helm steering it into port. It served no purpose to call him out on it right there. Better to pick a moment like that carefully. There was more going on there than a fib. As he walked away, a thought suddenly occurred to me. He was telling me his truth, just not with his facts. He was telling me he wanted to be seen as special. He wanted me to believe that he was loved. I assume because he thought himself neither special nor loved at all.     A lot of raw honesty came from his little tale. I have never forgotten it.     How much of the truth we hear is factual? Probably not very much. But there is a truth locked in its cage of words. It comes from the person te...

Dear God, thank you for my relief. Thank you for the ever-lengthening daylight. Thank you for our slow emergence from the darkest part of this long winter. Thank you for my growing relief. I know that peace, satisfaction, balance, and better blessings than even those all reside within me. They lovingly dole out whatever portions of their grace made possible by the allowing nature of my thoughts. Thank you for placing my hand on the faucet. Thank you for the friends and family who notice my broadcasting heart in ways I typically forget to notice myself. Thank you for their gentleness—and for my patience with they who are not so gentle. I learn from them both. Thank you for my health, in whatever capacity it exists. Thank you for every cell and fiber in my body which operates as it truly should. May they recruit increasing strength to heal the ones which cannot do the same. Thank you for my abundance, in whatever form it appears. Thank you for every debt I satisfy. May those r...

The new millennium has been quite a ride so far. Nineteen years in, we have covered a lot of territory. Back in 2000, the Internet was still in its comparative infancy. It would be a few more years before social media would go mainstream and connect humanity in ways never before imagined. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Internet users have increased from 5% to 55% of the world’s population. That number grows exponentially. The Internet has democratized human communication forever. We are always being faced with making a decision of one kind or another. But the decisions we end up with are the result of all the things to which we have been exposed. In the past 20 years, that list has increased by orders of magnitude. We see our neighbor more clearly now. Our enhanced social media use has turned the whole world upside down. We’ve been somewhat cornered by the dilemma of either becoming accustomed to this shift or being afraid of it. But change is occurring all the time n...

In the 15th century the word peculiar meant ‘private property’ or ‘something belonging exclusively to one person.’ Over time, that idea of singularity became laced with more judgemental terms such as ‘odd’ or ‘eccentric.’ Today, along with its now-layered meaning of odd and eccentric singularity, we have added a layer of complimentary value to the definition as one who thinks outside the box. Peculiarity has always had an evolving relationship with the rest of civilized society. And thank God for that. How many of us know someone who we might, by definition, consider peculiar? How many of us might consider ourselves the same? I absolutely know that I do. Sometimes it makes me feel special, sometimes it makes me feel a target. I don’t believe for one minute that everyone hasn’t experienced the same. There’s a bit of biblical background for this word as well. Both Moses in the Old Testament as well as the disciple Peter in the New Testament used it to refer to a people who belo...

    What is expected of us? Who or what expects it? Let’s state a few things plainly, first. Humanity is actually progressing, not regressing. Try to get used to that idea. The view we have through the media is similar to the way that astrologers describe a planet as being in “retrograde.” It’s not really moving backward, it just looks that way. But in either regard, the purpose of my bringing it up is to ask: What does your inner voice tell you about it? Because that’s the who/what which expects something of us. Essentially, whether you believe in such things or not, that inner voice is who you’re praying to, communicating with and even hoping to gain the approval of. It’s just human nature.      You do not have to believe in God to have an inner voice, for the record. It’s not limited to that. Most of us have many voices rattling around inside our heads vying for attention. Voices from our past reminding us of bits of wisdom mingled w...

    I started to see a pattern some years ago. I noticed in various instances that when I made a clear decision about something, a result would be more clearly realized.     Back in the mid 90’s while I was living in Toronto I made a decision. I don’t know what prompted me to think of it in terms of a decision rather than a wish, but that’s how I framed it in my mind. I was making a decision as a form of prayer, though I didn’t recognize it as such at the time. I decided I was going to stop housekeeping and begin earning my living as an actor full time, by my July birthday, which was still several months away. So that was the decision. I was going to be a working actor by my birthday.      Then, in the meantime, I continued working as a housekeeper as an undocumented immigrant living in Canada. My hope was that if I could get a union contract for a show that was really motivated to hire me despite my being an Ame...

Think for a moment about what it’s like to stand facing forward in the aisle of a speeding train. You’re moving but you’re not moving. Even small steps forward feel like an enormous leap of speed. Now, in your imagination turn around. What is the sensation like now? What does taking a step “forward” feel like? It sort of feels like it’s moving back but it’s actually going forward anyway. Just not as fast as the others, even those who are only standing still. Your brain and heart perceive the backward forwardness and strain to accommodate them both. This is the co-equal state of our global human society right this minute. We are all on this train. It moves at what seems to be an increasing speed. We all feel it. We each react differently based on which direction we are comfortable facing. There is reason to believe that this train is moving in a positive direction. Looking at the overall zigzagging progress of known human history, we have only ever improved upon ourselves. Desp...