Singing Along the Journey

Beyond Walls

The gift of life…

It seems quite funny to me that in all these years of sharing my thoughts randomly with those of you in the digi-verse, apparently, I have never paused to converse with you about Thanksgiving.  Oh yes, I often express ideas about gratitude and blessing, but I have not paused to reflect on the one day that we as a people set aside each year to remind us, well, to do just that.  I would like to think that that omission is because an attitude of gratitude has been a dominant theme in my life for years. But maybe not.  Thanksgiving, as it was taught to me (and to most of…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

The gift of life…

It seems quite funny to me that in all these years of sharing my thoughts randomly with those of you in the digi-verse, apparently, I have never paused to converse with you about Thanksgiving.  Oh yes, I often express ideas about gratitude and blessing, but I have not paused to reflect on the one day that we as a people set aside each year to remind us, well, to do just that.  I would like to think that that omission is because an attitude of gratitude has been a dominant theme in my life for years. But maybe not.  Thanksgiving, as it was taught to me (and to most of…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More

The gift of life…

It seems quite funny to me that in all these years of sharing my thoughts randomly with those of you in the digi-verse, apparently, I have never paused to converse with you about Thanksgiving.  Oh yes, I often express ideas about gratitude and blessing, but I have not paused to reflect on the one day that we as a people set aside each year to remind us, well, to do just that.  I would like to think that that omission is because an attitude of gratitude has been a dominant theme in my life for years. But maybe not.  Thanksgiving, as it was taught to me (and to most of…
Read More

Fifteen years, remembrance, and gratitude

This day is never an easy one for me.  I, like anyone who lived in Washington DC, or New York, or a little town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville, have my personal story to tell about that day.  That, however, is not the story I want to tell today as we remember the events of 15 years ago.  I want to tell you the story of a man whose name I do not know, a man working in a TSA line, in Columbus, OH. I was in Ohio (really in Gambier not in Columbus, but that was the nearest airport) to participate in the Kenyon Institute's Beyond Walls spiritual writing program.…
Read More

Beyond my own walls…

It's Friday.  It's been another tough week in the world.  And I am sitting here, in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, getting ready to head out into the last day of an amazing conference for writers of all things spiritual, the Beyond Walls conference of the Kenyon Institute. The oddest thing happened at the beginning of the week was that people asked me, over and over again, a question that I had not considered at all myself -- why are you here?  It may not seem an odd question to you, but I had not thought about that question with the intensity with which it was asked…
Read More