Musings
Leading The Flock
I spent the night once in the DuPage County Jail in Chicago. I got there by being a leader, leading five other young men in the wrong direction. I saw a video recently that reminded me when a leader is wrong, it has serious impacts on many other people. In this video, we are watching an unremarkable street…
Read MoreI Feel Loved
In “I Feel Loved,” the 2001 release by English electronic group Depeche Mode, Martin Gore’s lyrics paint a picture of how feeling loved cuts through pain and heartache and loneliness. It’s the dark night of my soulAnd temptation’s taking holdBut through the pain and the sufferingThrough the heartache and tremblingI feel loved I recently heard a…
Read MoreTrust Gives You Wings
During a luncheon at Wings Special Needs Community, the presenter made a statement that stuck in my mind. Wings is a day program in OKC for adults with developmental disabilities. They provide carefully curated programs designed to enhance independence, grow life skills, and allow members to live vibrantly. The speaker said that when working with the…
Read MoreArts And Crafts
More than one person around me lately has said that something was part art and part science. Many examples of art intersecting with science exist around us. Art is crucial in helping us understand our scientific legacy, and science is well served by applying an artistic lens. Together, art and science help us interpret, study,…
Read MoreGreat Expectations
We recently changed our internet provider. That sentence made many of you shudder, and you groaned a little without even knowing it. If you have been an adult more than a few days and have cable, internet, or any other wired or quasi-wired service coming to your house, apartment, or tiny home, you already know…
Read MoreScratch It Off
A dear friend of mine lost her twin brother recently in a tragic accident. At the funeral, they told a story about when the two of them were young and got a spanking, they would vigorously scratch their legs to make the pain go away. They would “scratch it off” they said. This got me…
Read MoreThe Real Magic Of Leadership
My daughter and I love to watch movies together. Since she is currently home for the holidays, we recently watched “Encanto” (we love Disney movies), and I was intrigued by many aspects of the story. The most relevant one for me involved the matriarch of a magical family and the way her leadership impacted all…
Read MoreBody, Mind, And Soul
This past week was a difficult one for me. Unless you are one of my closest friends, you wouldn’t have known, and that is the problem. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. In Doe Parker’s “The Good House & The Bad House”, the author uses a physical house to represent the past and…
Read MoreSitting With Dogs
We have two dogs. Actually, our kids have two dogs that they left at our house when they went off to college and life away from our home. Roscoe and Dixie are both rescued dogs and have somewhat undeterminable lineages, but they are sweet, and both have the defining characteristic of dogs: they love us…
Read MoreAll I Want For Christmas
I saw Santa and Mrs. Claus this past week. Was it the real Santa Claus? Well, there are a few ways I can answer that. I could tell you that it was. “How could that be?” you say. Maybe you’ve heard of a little thing called magic? I could tell you that it was a Helper Santa—one of many…
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