What Are Your Mini-Adventures?

When my son, Atticus was in third grade, he was asked to take a paper to the principal's office. When he didn't return for 45 minutes the teacher went to look for him. She found him at the playground swings having a grand time. He had never made it to the principal's office and the paper was no where to be found. Do you have mini-adventures in your day? How do you "get-away" if only for a few moments?

Can Only Men with Guns Change History?

The symbol for Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University is of a mother pelican pecking flesh from her breast to feed her still nesting and famished chicks. It symbolizes God's willingness to feed our soul directly from God's own breast.

We live in a time where we buy the myth that only a man with a gun has power to shape human destiny. How many lives are destroyed and what new course does our future take because of weapons of destruction/ Look at Syria, Iraq, 9/11, Aurora -- not enough space to list them all!

But remember the pelican. Acts of sacrifice, compassion and love do more than change human history. They seek justice for the wounded, provide food for the hungry and healing for the sick soul. \Only acts of love transforms the sins of a sick world.

Can a Starry Night Give Healing Light?

This is the image which comes to my mind whenever I allow the Newtown and now Boston tragedy to come to my consciousness. I say allow because I can't let these events overcome me too often or I might melt like candle wax near an open flame. Grief has a way of paralyzing me, and I have to remain angry. Anger is good. It keeps me alert. I have more phone calls to make to Senators who don't listen to the will of the people. I have to remain loving and prayerful, too. All the victims and their families need my prayers and yours, too.  Can God send them healing love and light? This painting says yes.



The way Van Gogh saw the universe helps me. We are stardust and we are infinite. We are carbon and immortal. We are broken and resilient.

Prayers for Boston

My prayers go out to the victims and their families in Boston today.  For the whole city, may you find healing in the weeks to come.

Faneuil Hall

Filling Up the Half-Empty Glass

 My middle class neighborhood is a mixed bag politically. During the political season, signs for Obama, Romney and extremes on either end announced each homes persuasion. With the signs gone after the election, the yards aren't so colorful, but I don't feel people are screaming their opinion to me either.

A few weeks ago, (before the awful head cold I'm fighting now) I took a walk in my neighborhood. I had gotten no further than a few houses away when I saw a huge banner down the street. I couldn't make out the sign but as I got closer I made out the word "Fag." First I thought, "oh please no," but then anger punched me. It's bad enough I live in Texas where mean season lasts all year long these days between Gov. Perry and Sen. Cruz vying for the title of whose intellect will first be compared to an amoeba. Now, there are yard signs spreading hate in the most vile ways.

My pace quickened and I could make out a person standing in the yard. I decided I would voice my outrage, but the owner, even from far away, seemed positively giddy.  He was pacing in the yard and looking out on the street. He walked to his porch and then back out to the street. Expectant.

I was up to the yard before I made myself look at that awful sign one more time -- the resolve I needed to speak my peace. Good thing I did, too because this is what the sign did say: WELCOME HOME, Fagans.
Once again, I had let my prejudice and my reflex to always see the glass as half-empty cloud my outlook.
"Expecting someone?" I asked the owner.
"My family," he said. "My grandkids have been with my daughter and her husband overseas for the last three years. They will drive up any minute."
"Have a wonderful and joyous reunion," I said and walked on.
Sometimes, God whispers in my heart the path I should take, but there are those times when a swifter action,  my attention is required, and God whacks me on the side of the head to reorient my thinking.
Politicians and the media will always make noise but I should never let it drown out the decency of most people. Yes, I should speak out on injustice but I should never assume people will work from their basest instincts. Always, I am to approach the goodness in the other.