Only one bigamist per family, thank you!

“My grandfather lied to my grandmother about another marriage he had.

I guess it may have run in the family. *

     But I never got married while I still had a family. That’s what I’m talking about. He lied about being married at the time he married the only grandmother I ever knew. Continue reading

Wounds of Love Still Hurt this Soldier Boy

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Peggy’s mother, Mary, answered and said “Hello, Michael.” She didn’t invite me in, but smiled, and I kind of smiled back.  Continue reading

Newspapering requires typing correct obit

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”

I typed this over and over again, hoping that one day I’d learn the fine skill of typing as I sat in a class with all girls. Young women, I should say. I was the only male in the Delaware County Community College course of study, and I never once felt out of place or unusual.

I wanted to be a journalist, you see. So, I figured I had to learn the fine art of typing to file my stories. Continue reading

Emergency hits home; order soon restored

     My second wife stopped breathing shortly after they placed her in the emergency vehicle en route to a hospital some eight years ago. The day was six-months to date of her first bout with an emergency wagon when she fell in our Conshohocken, PA, home, suffering a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

She remained in a coma for more than five days. This time, however, they were more certain that she would not recover from her latest, unplanned date with Miss Fate. A nurse or a social worker at the Hospital suggested I contact a priest to say the last rites for Wendy. Continue reading

‘Brewerytown Way’ Brought Back to Life

I see my life through the eyes of a kid who grew up in Brewerytown, swashbuckling my way through fights on the streets and later the jungles of Vietnam before finding my true calling as a spiritual clarion who wants all North Philadelphia children to return to their God-given Nature of Love. Continue reading

Smoke handcuffs me when stress hits home

I never wanted a cigarette as bad as I did when I got thrown into a “lockup” after getting kicked out of the courtroom by a judge whose ire I had raised by raising my own voice at him.  Continue reading

Philadelphia Justice with Judge Lineberger

My all-time favorite Philadelphia Judge was James Lineberger, a no-nonsense jurist who’d scare the hell out of many a defendant I’d bring to the bar of the court, and one time caused one of my clients to pass out when he sentenced him for a heinous crime a jury found him guilty of committing.

Judge Lineberger could also be as warm and fuzzy as a teddy bear who would leave the bench at the top of the courtroom and float down to the metal bar when spotting a Korean woman. He could serenade in her native tongue while gazing out from his big, lovable, and loving eyes.  Continue reading

Serving graciously as a St. Ludwig altar boy

“Ad Deum Qui Laetificat Juventutem Meam!”

That’s one of the prayers I’d recite as an altar boy at St. Ludwig’s Roman Catholic Church, and I’ll never forget it ‘til the day I die. Don’t ask me what it means right now. I never figured it out as a kid, but I loved to say it!  Continue reading

Collegeville Opens My Muse For Writing

Collegeville may or may not have been named after a religious school called “Ursinus” in the central part of Montgomery County. .  . Or some long ago seminary school. I really don’t know, but I rode through it when traveling to one of the last outdoor movie theatres, the one located in Limerick, Pa, a drive-in movie just outside of Pottstown.  Continue reading

Words Prompt Me to Share Love of Music

I heard a banjo strum as I fed the birds outside near the plum tree in my yard this morning. Banjo? Strumming? Where could that have come from, I wondered?

Continue reading

Create a life of magical renewal with Love

If I had a magic wand, I would wave it and remove all of the hate in our land. It would take away the hurt all felt throughout the ages of man from the beginning of time, when Cain killed his brother, and when a stupid Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a lousy bowl of soup.  Continue reading

PTSD undergoes a Shamanistic treatment

The Shaman applied pressure with his fingers and thumbs to the side, back, and front of my skull. He told me to let him know if he caused me any pain.

I felt some discomfort, but it wasn’t intolerable, and so I said nothing and let him continue the process as I sat in a chair in front of more than a hundred people attending the symposium on “What is Healing? – Archaic Traditions Meet Ways of Experiencing Modern Consciousness Exploration and Psychotherapy.” He was the principal speaker, having taught the participants to dance and sing in two large circles in the room where we had met.  Continue reading

Psychic Cat comes alive watching my TV

I think I’m going “Cat Shit.” You probably heard of someone going “Bat Shit.” But I’m here to tell you that I’ve gone “Cat Shit” and this is the reason why:

My son’s cat, Daniel, has developed some ESP skills. Extraordinary Sensing People skills.  Continue reading

My Vision Board’s World-Wide Travelling

A few weeks ago, I envisioned what the coming year would be like in a “Vision Board.” I got together with a small group and pasted magazine pictures and bold 48-point type letters to a cardboard placard showing what we would like to see enfold in 2016.

I placed the Vietnam War book at the top, adding lots of spiritual and meditative symbols alongside it. On the bottom line, I pasted “Love to Travel” and displayed two large pictures of my son and me on a cruise to Alaska some two years ago.

Continue reading

Thinking of the best way to speak to you

“Think before You Speak” reads the sign that my new best friend gave me for Christmas. She thought of me when she saw it, she said. She knew how many problems I had had with boundaries. Or, rather, lack of boundaries.  Continue reading

Feeling 17 again, despite the aging process

I don’t feel my age. I know I’m getting older and will soon meet my Maker. But I just can’t see myself as a senior citizen, let alone someone who will one day praise the glory of Medicare and the free rides on public transportation in Philadelphia.

To tell you the truth, I feel like I’m seventeen years old again. My body would disagree, but my heart and my mind often see things from that period of time . . . It was a time when I had just graduated high school and the world was my oyster, so to speak.  Continue reading

Owning the Mental Illness Amongst Us

Mental illness scares the shit out of me. The very term conjures up images of some crazed guy with wild, straggly hair and a demon-like smile of malevolence. Steven King kind of comes to mind when I think of someone who might be a little touched in the head. A Stephen King character, that is. Not Stephen King.  Continue reading

Meditation reflections help heal the worst

Reflections opened a new world of understanding today. Years after a traumatic event, I can look back and see things in a totally different and healing fashion.

I couldn’t do it when the shit was happening. It hurt too much.

Even five or ten years after the trauma, I’d get sweaty palms and a sped-up heartbeat when thinking about the worst day of my life. I couldn’t dwell for too long without having to relive the God-awful experience.  Continue reading

On my knees being grateful every day

I fall to my knees every day and give thanks for at least three things that I am totally grateful for. I usually include my son and at least one of our cats but also acknowledge the advent of a new day as well as a nice new warm bed and the person who invented the heater to keep all of us warm. The cats included!  Continue reading

Brewerytown never too far behind me

No matter where I go, Philadelphia will always go with me. I’ve taken the old neighborhood to combat in Vietnam as well as to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I let it shine in the courthouses of Philadelphia and the one and only house of pleasure I visited in Panama.

Yeah, I’m from Brewerytown, an old German-based section of Philadelphia that families of beer-makers settled in a small enclave of the City of Brotherly Love. Brewerytown is near the Philadelphia Zoo on Girard Avenue and not too far from the Eastern State Penitentiary, where Al Capone once lived in a section called Fairmount.  Continue reading

Reliving the presence of love again & again

I remembered what love once meant to me, and I thought I’d share it with those of us who might have forgotten it.

I’m talking about the love that hits you upside the head when you’re not looking; the type that won’t let you think of anyone else besides him or her; the love that you wish your lover would feel but you’re too afraid to hope for a schmuck like yourself.  Continue reading

What I Believe Makes Me Who I Am

Who am I? What do I believe? And can I name a few of my beliefs?

Let me name a few things I believe about myself. They’re in no particular order. 

Continue reading

What I believe will enhance my life forever

I believe that all of us are placed on this earth for a purpose, and the aim for us in life is to find out what that purpose is!

We don’t usually seek the answer right away. Most put it off until some calamity forces us to find answers to life’s most important questions. Why am I here? Why am I in this body? Who am I, really?  Continue reading

Taps by my Emotional Freedom Technique

If you haven’t tried it, you ought to Google “EFT” and see if such a technique could help with whatever might ail you today!

Continue reading

9-11 is Our Generation’s ‘Day Of Infamy’

Like December 7th, 1941, the date of “9-11” will go down in American history as a new generation’s Day of Infamy.

In my lifetime, it ranks up there with the horrific day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Continue reading

Joe Hill never died; he went on to organize!

On this Labor Day weekend, I’d like to offer the song “Joe Hill” to all my union-supporting friends and share the story of the man who helped me as a union organizer in what seems like another lifetime ago. Continue reading

A ‘Lot of Heart’ can go a Long Way in Life!

Kids I grew up with in the tough section of North Philadelphia said that I had “a lot of heart.” I cherish that statement more than any I later heard as a teenager, a young adult, or someone older looking back on what made him the proudest in his short lifetime. You’d have a “lot of heart” if you didn’t care for the consequences when sticking up for a black kid when a white “friend” called him the “N” word and then classified you as a “N-gger lover” for coming to his defense.

Continue reading

Recalling some cool summers in the Army

Summer always served as a “new beginning” for me when I was in the US Army. I got drafted on the Third of June and did my basic training in the hot, dry air of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

I can’t tell you how many push-ups I did during the two-month training session, as the meanest drill sergeant I ever saw brought fire to my poor soul by running me everywhere and cussing me out to force me into fighting shape.

Continue reading

A rant against disrespect, hurt & the war

Much of what I know about War was what I learned while playing as a kid. You know, using a stick or a broken branch from a tree, I’d pretend it was a rifle to shoot the bad guys who were out to get me and the rest of the good guys in my old neighborhood. 

Continue reading

Defense Attorney Regrets His Prosecution

All of my legal career involved defending someone charged with crimes or offenses against the law. I worked 20 years as a lawyer, trying more than a hundred jury trials, winning more than half of them.

But to be honest, my first taste of arguing the law came not as a defense lawyer, but as a prosecutor, one appointed by some colonel to bring charges against a buck private who broke a law and faced a summary offense for some minor infraction.

Continue reading

Cause of All Wars Questioned in Confederate Flag Controversy

     President Barack Obama may have raised an issue on all wars when he eulogized a fallen comrade on June 26, 2015, at the funeral for the pastor of the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

     While never detracting from the valor that Confederate Soldiers fought with in the Civil War, he offered a plain and simple truth.

Continue reading

True Love Passed Over for a Child’s Sake

        Peggy sat at the table of the Blue Jay Restaurant, staring out the window and wondering where her life had gone and what she should do with her new condition. 

She had hoped that the signs she felt from her body were false and that she was simply sick. But she knew from what happened to her older sister that there was no getting around the truth.

Continue reading

Abraham Calls Me to the Law of Attraction

I met Abraham up close and personal yesterday, and I learned the universe had called me to study the Law of Attraction as voiced by Esther Hicks, the one who channeled for the spirits guiding us back to the Source within. 

Continue reading

Please take me back my love; I need you so!

I miss you. My God, how I have missed you!

It feels like forever since we’ve been together.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I know that it’s my fault. I walked out on you, believing I could get along without you, without your guidance without your help. Without your Love . . .

Continue reading

Do no harm and happiness will flow freely

“First, Do No Harm.”

This quote from the famous Greek of antiquity, Hippocrates, could be the basis for a new Golden Rule for the Road.  Continue reading

It was me an enemy sniper was trying to kill

A Sniper Takes Aim at this Young Lieutenant

A Viet Cong sniper was trying to kill me. Some motherfucker hiding in the trees, the bushes, the triple-canopy jungle had just shot at my platoon. I thought he was shooting randomly, despite the debris from the ground, grassland and other tiny bits of rock that struck me from a bullet’s ricochets.

No, he was aiming at no one but me! It’s taken me more than forty years to figure that out. 

Continue reading

Healing others starts first with healing self

   Words of Another can help in Your Healing

 I felt a lot of healing when I read the following quote from the feminine deity: Moor Jani:

     “We all have the capacity to heal ourselves as well as facilitate the healing of others. When we get in touch with that infinite place within us where we are Whole, then illness can’t remain in the body. And because we’re all connected, there’s no reason why one person’s state of wellness can’t touch others. Elevating them and triggering their recovery. And when we heal others, we also heal ourselves and our planet.

Continue reading

Ithaca Mystical Insights — by Contoveros

Trying to Understand the Meaning of Life

I am looking for the type of cover for my latest book, my son. It tells of a Mystical Journey I embarked upon several months ago, arriving in Ithaca, New York, for a three-day retreat. There, I met a teacher who explained how I could understand my life and its meaning.

  • He spoke no English, yet conveyed to me the Wisdom of the Ages.

Continue reading

Ithaca Insights Serve Up Peace & Calm

     

How May I Serve You?

     That’s the key to a happy life, you know. Learning to serve others selflessly with no expectation of a reward other than the knowledge you are doing unto others something you’d want them to do . . . unto everyone else.

Continue reading

Meditate First and Foremost Each Day!

What a surprise!

I expected to try to get through the day today without my morning cup of meditation offering from Deepak & Oprah. I figured the 21-day journey had ended yesterday, August 31st. Yet today, the American holiday called “Labor Day,” they gave us a gift — an extra day. And boy, did I need it. Continue reading

Hoping for a lofty goal, I write a lot & often

(Question 2 on Hope)
You may also have experienced this kind of hope, (See https://contoveros.wordpress.com/?p=12505&preview=true) but not thought of it in those terms. Think of a time when you felt sure you were going to attain a lofty goal, even though the path to the goal was not apparent. That is the hope that comes from your being. Describe this feeling of certainty in your journal. – Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Feeling Hope) I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision, or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.

Hope to One Day Write a Book

I was a buck private in training as a soldier in Fort Dix, NJ, when I had a vision, or what Zen Buddhists call a “satori” or moment of clarity of what I needed to do with my life.

     I needed and wanted to write a book.

Continue reading

Hope fills your presence and your future

We introduced a new understanding of hope today. We want to build a sense of hope that is a force of change that comes from a feeling of certainty and well-being within, rather than an anxious kind of hope that vaguely wishes for things to turn out well. Write about an experience you may have had with this stronger kind of hope. – Deepak Chopra (Day 6 — Feeling Hope) 
 (For more on meditation, see Chopra Center Meditation. Experience)

Hope can Help Guide Through All of Life

I don’t think you can have a future or any type of “end product” without hope. I see hope more as a process, a living force that flows from day-to-day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. We hope for something that will come into existence in some future time. Yet the feeling we get through the act of hope occurs in the present.

Continue reading

Getting a Good Last Laugh is so Laudable

Despite always having a smile on my lips and a laugh at my tongue, I found it hard to think of anything to write about for the latest meditation round for Oprah and Deepak. That is, until I picked up my son at work this evening and we joked and laughed until I almost did you know what in my pants. It hurt so much that I started crying, that’s how good it was and how great it felt to just let it all come out in front of one of his 22-year-old buddies and our 25-year-old female traveling companion.

Continue reading

Peace Found Deep Inside the Vietnam War

(Part 1 of 2)
Recall a time when you felt calm and peaceful, even though the circumstances were not peaceful. Write down a description of that event, and describe how you were able to be calm in that situation. What was the source of this peacefulness if it didn’t come from outside? — Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Experience (Day 3 — “Feeling Peace”)

     I had led my platoon in Vietnam for several months. We had encountered several firefights, but no one was killed or injured, thank God. But you never knew what the next day would bring, and so we were on edge, on the ready, so to speak, for anything that might have endangered us. Continue reading

The Willie Dream — he’ll always return

I had a dream with a wonderful happy ending just a few minutes ago. It woke me, and I made a cup of coffee, brushed my teeth, and began writing while the memory was still fresh on my mind.

     I dreamed about my dog named Willie.

Continue reading

Fuzzy needs Kabbalah Group to grow by

(Unpublished Kabbalah story from Feb. 18, 2011)

Fuzzy needs Group to glow bright

     Fuzzy was a Fuzz Ball that wanted to give love to whoever he met. It all started when he felt a point in the heart materialize, and a wish to bestow came over him.

     He’d give love here, there, just about everywhere, every day to everybody he came into contact with. After all, he had thousands of tiny fuzz balls to give away. He’d pluck ‘em from his round little body and pass them on, trying to ease pain here, create a smile there. Continue reading

Love notes discovered from a distant past

     Him: God, I miss being in love. I guess I could say I miss you.
You helped me tap into the feelings I usually only get with Shekinah, what the Kabbalah says is the feminine side of the divine. She’ll always be with me, and I see now you simply took her place for a little while here on Earth. Love is still there, but only redirected now.
Thanks. Continue reading

Sweat Lodge Reveals many Creative Spirits

     It took several hours for the effects of the Sweat Lodge ceremony to kick in, but when it did, I realized the control I always thought I needed was not in my hands, but in what the Greeks called the Fates; the Christians, God; and the Buddhists, Karma.

Continue reading

Breathing to ‘Right Self’ is a Lifetime Job

      Don’t think my friend, Lea Stoneheart, expected such angst from me while responding to her comment about “The Hidden Costs of War” Retreat at Omega Institute five days last week [April 22, 2010].  It just spewed out. I guess I’m still processing much of what occurred. It will take time to learn to use tools to seek peace without first having to go to war.

Continue reading

Yearning for you grows with each touch

     What is a monk to do when he is lonely? When he is blue?

     When you reach that low point where you feel you are the loneliest person in the world, who or what do you turn to for relieve? 

Continue reading

Saying ‘I Love You’ Twice Blesses Me!

“I Love.”

     It’s an affirmation I can live with over and over, day in and day out, from one lifetime to another, without ever getting tired of saying it.

     It is in the giving of love that I’m twice blessed. I got so much of it when I come into your presence that I can’t keep it in, and I must share, or I know that I could die. And so, I tell you that “I Love You,” and hope that you never stop listening to me. Even if you blush and say that I’m only kidding and scold me, saying “Stop that, Michael. Quit playing around.”  Continue reading

God needs no Out-of-Body Experience

Too often I hear someone talk about an “out-of-body” experience as if it was the greatest thing since, I don’t know, the invention of peanut butter. Astral projection is another feat people speak of in hushed tones as if their trip from one place to another meant everything in the world.

Continue reading

Don’t let me believe in all my thoughts

     I’m so scared because I don’t know what to do, nor who to turn to. Flashes of insights, intuition, and a “knowing” that borders on the Psychic have arisen in me and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.  Continue reading

Doors are Opening for All Doing Good!

There’s a passage in Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus’ disciples complain that someone — one who is not one of them — is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. It seems that fundamentalists of all ages have held a belief that there was only one way to get to the kingdom; only one way, and that was through Jesus.  Continue reading

I wish all compassion found in meditation

     On February 5th, 2012, a friend who calls herself, the Frugal Xpatcommented:

I always wanted to meditate . . .

I didn’t respond to the comment until now, but I want to share how everyone could enjoy this exercise the Frugal Expat spoke of in Daily Meditation Desperately Needed. As she describes her life’s quest, she is on “An expat’s journey in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.” Continue reading

Vietnam War veteran recalls his journey

     Dealing with the Vietnam War becomes a little easier each time I write about it. I “desensitize” myself. I now see my actions as separate from the emotions I felt while a young soldier, as well as the feelings of guilt many veterans like me, imposed on ourselves while readjusting to civilian life. It’s helpful when a high school student asks questions and you try to be honest and direct.
Continue reading

Let the Superfluous go, Cruise a Freeway

     Shifting into cruise control, I let myself glide through many of life’s activities nowadays. I relax, take several deep breaths, and seek a place inside where there are no thoughts, no worries, and no frets.

Continue reading

Where is the boy I left home for the war?

I knew a boy

Who went to war

Continue reading

Greet your road with love and compassion

     I’ve taken compassion on the road.

     Literally!

      I send affection to motorists cut off by a speeding car that winds in and out of lanes. I feel for the driver who was never told by the operator of a car in front that that operator was going to turn, despite what appears to be working lights that turn on and off when you press the turn signal lever up or down.

     My heart goes out to you who have observed the speed limit, inching no more than seven miles an hour over a 55-mph limit when someone in a pickup truck rides your tail even though the driver can simply pull into the open right lane and pass your car on the left.

     I used to curse out those I believed were inconsiderate drivers. You know the aggressive types that always seemed to have more important business to attend to than you did.  Too often, I’d let anger push me to the extreme, and I’d speed up to show ’em what a speedster they had met on the road. It was road rage, pure and simple. The more I focused on how I’d been insulted, the more the rage would become inflamed, causing me to see red and not care about the defensive driving skills I swore I would practice just a few minutes earlier when I was feeling more level-headed.

Compassion for So-Called Reckless Driver

     Then it dawned on me. I could feel compassion for the so-called reckless driver. I know what it is like to be in such a hurry. I’ve been there. I’d feel the world would come to an end should I miss an appointment, be late for a job, or fail in the impression I wanted to make by arriving early enough to greet someone.

     I always had a reason to speed. There were so many important things I had to do, to finish, to check off that “to-do” list to feel my life was worthwhile, that I was accomplished, that I am accomplishing . . . something.

     I try to understand how the person traveling in the car trapped himself or herself by his or her own expectations, the desires and attachments to concepts and ideas that were no more real than the make-believe “deadline” they have imposed on themselves. No, there has never been a line that we needed to reach to prevent someone from falling down dead.

     We’ve created this illusion. We’ve invested much of our lives into reaching certain milestones, destinations, and goals. That is all well and good, until we enslave ourselves to becoming totally “outcome-focused.” How you get there doesn’t matter, just as long as you carry out that task wherever it might be. Too often, it doesn’t matter who we hurt or cut off on the road we have traveled.

Process is More Important than the Finish Line

     The process itself, I have learned, is just as important as, if not more important than, crossing the finish line. We spend the greatest part of our lives in some sort of “process” to get something.

     We are squandering away that time if we focus on nothing but the ending. Why not learn to enjoy the road while we’re riding? Enjoy the lay of the land, the smooth macadam where the tires roll on following a bumpy part of the highway. Breathe in the air, the scented smell of that green-tree air-freshener of mint or the dark brown one that smells like brand new leather seats.

     Sip from your cup of hot coffee or cool water. Listen to music or the beautiful sounds of silence that help you to still the mind so that you can live through your senses now, not at the end of the road. It is in the moment that you can find true compassion. Seek it inside, and, if you’re lucky, you can pick it up as a hitch-hiker on a road less traveled.

Abide in the moment you just completed

I am Complete.

I am Finished.

     I’ve done what I have done and everyone can be satisfied with my efforts, including — and most importantly — me. Continue reading

Pinned for a Life above & beyond the call

While Neil Armstrong was taking a giant leap for all mankind, I had taken a small step toward adulthood one month after the moon landing, and I had no one to thank for it except my brother, who encouraged me to aim for the stars in becoming an Officer and a Gentleman in the Army of the United States of America.

Continue reading

Tattoo Tests Tale to Tell the Truth Today

A tattoo can readily identify someone, and sometimes one can become the key to the guilt or innocence of a man facing the wrath of a woman he may have wronged.

Continue reading

Graduation Highlights Father-Son Ties

One of the most wonderful moments of my life occurred without my knowing it. Had I the presence of mind to be more present for things that mattered, I might not have missed it. Recalling what this once-in-a-lifetime occurrence must have been like, however, is the second-best way I know of memorializing it. Continue reading

Omega opens doors to lost PTSD veterans

I didn’t want to go back to Omega Institute this year. Each time I travelled to this land of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, I’d get high from the holistic experience. But then I’d change into an Ichabod Crane feeling chased by the Headless Horseman, who’d tell true-life stories that caused so much pain I couldn’t hold it inside. Continue reading

Keeping all Alive a ‘Lifetime Achievement’

     After serving in the Vietnam War I turned my back on anything having to do with the military, and so I was totally surprised years later when, requesting my medals, I got one that I still don’t believe I earned. Continue reading

Mindfully cleaning pot helps cleanse mind

Cleaning a pot can be very meaningful, particularly if you block out all thoughts and concentrate on nothing but you and the instrument that has helped provide you with so much nourishment. Continue reading

Being present for the dying brings all alive

Death entered my life recently and I’ve felt so alive with its presence. Continue reading

Need no battle to understand war horrors

     When I heard the song  “Still in Saigon” the other day, I could have sworn a Vietnam veteran had written about his flashbacks and a need to process what was unprocessed as a young man.

     Little did I know that the writer never set foot in Southeast Asia, let alone serve in the military. That got me wondering about the performing arts and how someone who never experienced war could capture its long-term effects on those who faced combat. Continue reading

Only the Pure in Heart Will See their Goal

Purity.

     There’s something in it that resonates with me. In my private moments, I try my best to connect with it, but once I start to analyze it, it vanishes. Continue reading

Exercise Gets Me Higher, Step by Step

     I get such a high while exercising that I can’t imagine why I haven’t done this more often in life. Continue reading

‘Mammy’ can you hear? It’s your little boy!

There is a tradition in Eastern philosophies where you’re taught to view each person and other sentient being as if he, she – or it is your mother. I never knew how nurturing this could be until I allowed the child in me to reciprocate and bask in the most secure and loving place. Continue reading

Creativity shines when pure self emerges

     Creativity exists in all of us.

     But only those who nurture it can fully appreciate its magical transformation.

     I liken it to a mineral or rock that resides within, undisturbed by the daily thoughts and busy lives of quiet desperation. It can be uncovered only when one stills the mind and releases preconceived notions of what creation is all about.  Continue reading

Let Catholics ‘opt out” in birth control plan

I don’t understand all the fuss that Catholic universities and hospitals are raising over providing health care for women that includes mandatory birth control provisions. Why not let “Practicing Catholics” follow the teachings of their church to “opt out” for the coverage, while permitting non-Catholics what doctors and women’s groups say is a health benefit?  Continue reading

Seeing a Veteran’s’ History Never Repeats

Do all of us & yourself a favor.

Keep an eye out for a Veteran.

Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading

Don’t ‘better’ yourself by berating another

I was seething when I saw my former US senator decry Blacks receiving food stamps from the government. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told an Iowa audience this week that he would tackle this “race problem” if elected president, thus echoing the sentiments of his old congressional colleague, Newt Gingrich, who suggested poor students in city schools clean the bathrooms for their more affluent ones, rather than grow up to be pimps or prostitutes.  Continue reading

‘Too Afraid’ to Say a ‘Woman Scared You’

“Why did you shoot her?”

“I don’t know.”

With these three words, the defendant buried himself, and no matter what I did to rehabilitate a self-defense claim before the jury, we were sunk. It showed that no matter what one plans, sometimes something can, and always will, go wrong.  Continue reading

Messaging yourself to another generation

Ever wonder what life was like for ancestors living fifty, a hundred or even 200 years ago?

How would you like to read a journal of some great, great, great-aunt forced to raise a family alone after her soldier husband had been killed in the Civil War? Like to see your great-grandfather dressed in Irish kilts speaking to you from the old country, or view a relative wearing a straw hat toasting you from America’s Roaring 20s? 

Continue reading

Life-Long Habit ‘Stroked’ Up In Smoke

I can think of many ways to stop a bad habit without having to suffer a stroke that goes untreated for years and years.  Continue reading

Like to Change History? Try Writing It!

How’d you like to go back in time and correct mistakes made in the past? No, you couldn’t go back to the moment before you were conceived, or any other time in your far distant past. Go back to more recent moments – say in the past year or two — when you believed you knew so much about life and how to live it without doing harm to others.  Continue reading

Recalling childhood angels with dirty faces

I can think of no worse place to be than in a church, a temple, or a synagogue when an unbidden and involuntary giggle would invade my psyche and take control of me. A “giggle” is too mild a word: uncontrollable laughter would rise to the level of guffaws and downright knee-slappers, right at the most somber parts of a religious service. Continue reading

When a criminal defendant wants to lie . . .

     Someone asked me how a criminal lawyer could ever represent a guilty person.

     I told ‘em that was it was easy. My job as an attorney was never to judge, but to uphold something called the Constitution.

     It’s the one time, however, that a guy planned to lie to a jury that really got to me.

————————-

Continue reading

Writing Reveals Truth Flowing Within

     Why do I write?

     The answer is: because I have to. I need the therapy to look deep inside to provide me. I’m not talking about surface writing. You know, the kind a reporter might type when covering some disaster, a meeting, or a political event that might include both. I write only after communing with some sort of truth that bubbles up from within.  Continue reading

Twice snow uncovers October awakenings

     It snowed along the East Coast of the United States today (October 29, 2011), making it the first time in more than 30 years the white stuff appeared this early outside my Conshohocken, PA, window.

     I remember the last time because it was so life-changing, and I wonder if today’s gift from above will have the same effect on me and my world.  Continue reading

Choosing death so that others might live

Eight Tibetan Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of their country. They took their own lives when soldiers of the army set up quarters in Tibetan monasteries.

    How could anyone do such a thing?

They must have been in intense pain. Or they were offering overwhelming love.  Continue reading

Grant me a world of group friends, Amen!

As my world started to close in on me, demanding its immediate attention toward responsibilities, affairs of work, and needs in my house, I found an oasis inside of myself and in the thoughts of friends in my group.

Now, this ain’t just any ordinary group. It’s one where members have placed the concerns and desires of others above their own. It is a group of men and women, old and young, rich and poor, who have made altruism their guiding principle.

They — myself included when I can pick myself off the mat where I feel I’ve been beaten to time and again — give no advice but simply listen deeply to the concerns of another.

By opening our hearts, we let another pour out what may seem an insurmountable problem that somehow develops a miraculous solution once it is aired in the light of day. Some say it is the light that shines on our suffering that causes most predicaments to shrink in size, to be placed into a larger picture, and thus become more manageable.

A Silent Retreat Helps in Replenishment

But you don’t know that when walloped to the side of your head by something that you did not see coming and want to fight against in the only way you know how: ferociously with no concern who you end up hurting. In most cases, the worst victim of your rage becomes yourself.

  •      That is why silence and a retreat from those worldly battlements are needed for replenishment. It is when I close my eyes to the chaos and uncompromising world that I begin to see hope and a cure for such destructive powers. I focus on naught but my breathing, mindfully nudging out thoughts of the moment until I can rest “in the moment” with no intrusions, save the golden silence broken only by breathing in and breathing out.

Then I visualize a friend or two from the group, a friend whose mere touch had lifted my spirits, one whose soft smile eased my heart and guaranteed — a mutual guarantee — that life is better than what our limited five senses can sort out.

    Delight in Accepting the Here and Now!

I bask in the image of one friend and then another, recalling the love each offered as we gathered in assembly. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad, just an acceptance of the here and now. My group can be “life and in person” or a “virtual” one, as the messages we provide via the Internet. Loving compassion is palpable, no matter what forum it is conveyed in.
     And so, I say to my group that you are the greatest generation I have ever been fortunate to have been born into. I thank my lucky stars that whatever karma emerges, I’ll use it to take action for a more compassionate world. By placing my faith above reason, I can see a world where I will always call you friend” and long to be as one in our group together. . . forever . . . world without end.

End needless suffering in US debates

Tone it down, America. You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. The face of the body politic, that is, we are creating needless hurt for the countrymen we’d like to lead to our mutual goal: the pursuit of happiness.  Continue reading

Remembering the Greatest Time of my Life

Continue reading

‘Shining Moment’ sends me ‘Soaring High’

Originally Cont’d from Youth recaptured through football hurdle 1-22-10 Continue reading

What Type of Personality is Your Type?

Continue reading