A Bag of Years

Off with the old, on with the new. Nature turns the page. * * * It’s a quiet Saturday afternoon. I stand on the back patio peeling a last-year’s orange. I watch last-year’s leaves falling effortlessly from the giant water oak overhead. It’s their time to say goodbye. The acorns already have. Shards of sunlight …

A New Mosaic

“To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 * * *  The words above were written sometime in the 10th Century BC by King Solomon, supposedly the wisest man who ever lived, a claim that might be disputed by certain latter-day politicians. But it’s a good …

Wisdom from the East

There is a pocket-sized booklet of quotes from such notable dispensers of wisdom as the Dalai Lama, Lao Tzu, Suzuki, Matzu and Jiddu Kaishnamati and others. Now these are not necessarily household names, but their quotes perpetuate the myth that wisdom only comes from the Eastern Zen masters. It sorta makes some sense that anybody …

Shackled to a Screen

“Lay no foundation upon which you build yourself a cell.”  Father Abbot Zeno, Zen Buddhist  * * * ‘Tis the season to be jolly, the carols sing. Christmas is near. And here I sit getting acquainted with my newest body part, a knee. Maybe the Christmas season is not the best time to replace failed body …

Recollections of Thanksgiving

“There’s nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor…that it was from the hand of God.”    Ecclesiastes 2:24 Thanksgiving…the very concept conjures up evocative nostalgia. A silent bell tolls in our hearts, reviving the infused pilgrim spirit inherited from the Plymouth Plantation. …