Friday evening was spent at the Lake County Fair. County Fairs activate memories of the Durham County Fair which I attended as a boy in North Carolina. The odor of sawdust, animals, the visual experience of a mobile pop-up village dedicated to entertainment — has not changed. The midway of amusement rides remain but…
Life goes on as it must. Patterns are established, habits ingrained, the inexorable impetus of cause and effect. Can I imagine our ancestors sense of dread at a time when they felt the gods were working against them? Has not science removed that burden? Hardly. I had a brief conversation with a friend and…
This poem came my way this morning. To be human is not fixed, a given. Its a process of learning. The curve of a individual life lived can result in wreckage, or complex beauty. I wonder if it is possible to achieve the latter without a relationship to animals? A PRAYER TO TALK TO…
I am looking forward to attending a concert tomorrow evening, Friday, at the Lake County Fair. Infinity, a cover band I’ve enjoyed in the past, is scheduled to take the main stage at 9PM. Since I am a senior citizen now, Fair admission comes at a discount. To hear tunes made popular nationally in…
Americans, myself included, believe that slavery ended with the conclusion of the Civil War. There is a shop in St. Joseph, Bound For Freedom. The phrase refers to the underground railroad, the route north taken by escaped slaves. The Bound For Freedom shop offers “fair trade” items produced by individuals in third world countries. …
Lake Michigan, the five great lakes are inland seas. The imagination fails at the immensity of the amount of fresh water, 21 percent by volume of the world’s surface fresh water. While wading on a sand bar at the edge of Lake Michigan my attention was drawn by the sand that enveloped each step. …
It is a delight to travel. I’m in Michigan wine country, just outside of St. Joseph. With a brief two hour drive, the big city of Chicago is west of us. Benton Harbor and St. Joseph are situated on the other side of great Lake Michigan. The environment of soil and weather and proximity…
Falling in order to rise…… the destruction of received models and forms is necessary in order to clear a space for spontaneous thought to arise. From the cathedral of our own feelings, from the void of the blank canvas, then, comes the space for revelation. We are fragments of an unutterable whole. Meaning is…
Superficially this is a love song. By chance it was offered by the playlist here at Starbucks at the time I was contemplating what to say about Charlie Gard. The tune is far from pop entertainment. To my ear it enters at an existential level, speaking to the essential need for human connection. Our…
Aristotle wrote in his Ethics that the end purpose of philosophy is purposeful action. Disciplined thinking is essential to living well, deciding what action to take. And since to be human is to be a social creature, we make innumerable decisions that materially affect the lives of others. A group of us met last…
