Synchronicity is a term I have come to cherish since being introduced to it by my favorite psychologist, Carl G Jung. It refers to deeply meaningful coincidences that mysteriously occur in one’s life. Jung proved by the law of probability that they were not mere coincidences but insights into our rich and worthwhile lives.
Continue readingTag Archives: Philadelphia
Touch at least one heart with Meet-Up now
If you could go back in time to attend a Meet-Up in Jerusalem with the famous rabbi from Nazareth to share some bread, wine and good conversation, would you sign up and go?
How about traveling back some 2,600 years to give a listen to the Four Noble Truths in northern India by a fellow who some claim had reached enlightenment? Would you agree to meet weekly to discuss life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? 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
Honesty always the best policy in her court
You should never call a woman a bitch.
Particularly if she’s wearing a long black robe and has the power to throw you in jail for anything deemed to be contempt of court. Her Court, that is. Continue reading
Dobbins Reunion manifests HS aging story
As soon as I turned 18 and got a draft card, I rushed to my printing shop at Dobbins Technical Institute (aka Dobbins High School) and commenced to committing a federal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
I didn’t know it was against the law, a federal law at that, but I guess I should have known you can’t change the date of birth on your Selective Service card to show you’re 21 years old rather than 18. Hey, it was the best way of getting served in every Philadelphia bar in 1966.  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
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
First learn the ‘Way’ before leading others
Pride cometh before the fall.
Serving graciously as a St. Ludwig altar boy
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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
Universe conspiring to guide us all
When will I ever learn to trust the Universe?
When will I develop enough faith to believe things happen for my well-being? And when can I truly trust my instincts and live more peacefully in tune with what the Cosmos is manifesting just for me ? 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
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
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.
Touched by an Angel to Help Guide Others
Angels can perform magic if we open ourselves to ’em! Continue reading
Science Supports the Law of Attraction
If you didn’t know it by now, science supports the claims made by Abraham about the Law of Attraction and how it could help revitalize your life from this moment on.
That’s the word I got attending a workshop when a physicist met with Esther Hicks and explained how aligning with the Source, rather than resisting it, is based on the law of physics. “We knew that” Abraham said, speaking through Esther Hicks. Undaunted, the young man of science said that he realized it only after studying what the Law prescribes for all mankind. Align yourself with what you truly want in life and keep positive thoughts on achieving your heart’s desire. If you can imagine the happiness your achievement will provide, start with feeling that happiness now. Don’t wait for a result. Feel it in your gut, your marrow, your very soul.  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
At least, no one is shooting at me this time
(See Part One, “Cancer strikes . . .)
Fear of Dying From Cancer Takes Over Me
The train ride from home to the hospital was one of the longest trips of my life. I just knew I was going to die. I figured that the surgeon could not remove all the cancer during my operation 10 days earlier, and it finally struck me: I am a cancer victim!
The doctor never called me with the results of the operation in the Veterans Hospital of Philadelphia. I spent five days and four nights there, mostly recuperating from the surgery. When I left, I had hoped to hear from the physician, but she didn’t call. I believed she was afraid to give me the bad news over the phone.
I never once opened the book I took with me to read on SEPTA’s R-6 rail line connecting Conshohocken with the 30th Street Station of Philadelphia. Nor did I open it when I sat on the bus that took me and several other veterans to the hospital in West Philadelphia. Who cared about reading when you only have so much time left? Who cares about anything in life when you’re facing death?
No Use for Cell Phone During this Trip
Nor did I check any of my e-mails on the cell phone I carried. How many people do you know that can go a full hour, let alone an entire day, without giving in to social media addiction? I know some who turn on their phones before getting out of bed in the morning. They just can’t live without seeing the latest text message or input from a Facebook friend or e-mail contact.
But there I was with no contact with the outside world as I made my way to the oncology ward, sat on an examination bed, and awaited the verdict from the doctor. I meditated as much as I could, hoping to calm the jitters I had all morning. It helps to block out all thoughts. It helps not to think because I usually tend to think the worst in a situation like this.
—————-
That’s it, Michael J. You got your breathing under control. You have been able to let all thoughts drift by without grasping onto them. You’re a blank slate right now. You’re living in the present moment. You’re safe and sound in a hospital office. No one is shooting at you, trying to kill you . . .
Vietnam War Firefights Recalled
You know, the greatest benefit of having served in combat is that during the worst times of my adult life, I have always been able to compare it to the firefights I faced while in the Vietnam War. Nothing compares to it. No divorce, no death in the family, no serious illness. Did I just mention illness? Yes, even an illness such as a life-threatening one is cancer. At least I’m not suffering pain at this moment. I’m not hurting. I’m not sniveling like a baby who hasn’t got his way for good health and a long life.
I am simply alive. And I can “be” alive for as long as I keep my mind away from any and all negative aspects of death. And I can feel God by saying, “At least no one is shooting at me!”
Uh oh. Someone just opened the door. It’s Doctor Carter Paulson. She’s smiling. She touches my arm, and I am now set for her pronouncement. “You’re cancer free,” she says. “We got it all.”
————-
- No cancer means no chemotherapy . . . no radiation . . . no negative thoughts of an impending death.!
Now what do I do with this second chance I got from this bout with cancer?
What Would You Do?
Growing up with Catholic Sisters (Nuns)!
While growing up in a Catholic School, I met all kinds of nuns. Some I liked more than others. I was kind of like the class clown, or a class-clown wannabe, and got called out by many of the good teachers wearing the black coverings with the bullet-proof white vests covering their chests. I went to Saint Ludwig’s, a church school in what was then a predominantly German neighborhood of North Philadelphia called “Brewerytown.”
I never did like Sister Saint Clare, but I did like Sister St. Leonard, even though she had made my brother repeat first grade and was forever marked in God’s permanent record as one of those “left-behind.”
Sister Saint Clare bullied me when she learned I had played hooky. She tried to get me to “squeal” on who I had stayed out of school with. But I never snitched on him, even after she forced me to the brink of the top of the second-floor school stairway and over the steps for a tumble I will never forget. See: Sister Saint Clare knocks me for a loop.
Still Loving my All-Time Favorite Nun
Sister Josephine Frances was my all-time favorite, even though she smacked me once when I thought it wasn’t right. She had left the classroom and told us not to talk. It was something that hardly anyone followed. At least I didn’t, even though I noticed that most kids read their books.
When she returned, she asked which one of us had talked. I was unafraid. Like I said, I really liked her. She made me proud of my Greek heritage when she taught us in her fourth-grade class about the ancient Greeks and how much our Western World owed to those great men and women from thousands of years ago. I saw myself as one of those who, incidentally, would never tell a lie.
I was one of only a handful — all boys, I seem to recall — who raised our hands in answer to the good sister’s questions. Well, without further ado, she marched up to each and every one of us sitting in one of those wooden chairs with those little wooden desks with an empty hole across the desk-top that once held an ink bottle, and smacked us.
A Smack that Still Reverberates Years Later
I mean, “smacked” us. It was loud. And, it hurt! But not as much as what happened next.
Pure unadulterated shame and embarrassment came over me. For the first time in my life, I felt my face turning red. You see, I had sinned, and the Angel of the Lord descended upon me and struck me with the wrath of God.
It was devastating. Yet, some 50-odd years later, I still hold that holy nun in the highest regard, and I’ve never been afraid of admitting my mistakes. I could have gone the other way. I could have become someone who would lie by simply saying nothing, which I believe many others might have done. And some still do . . .
Truth is the truth, no matter what age you’re confronted with it, I learned back then. I feel Sister Josephine Frances helped me to see that and pass a test of a lifetime.
To ‘be or not to be’ Gay and in Love again
Deborah loved with a love that was more than a love. Cupid’s arrow struck her just as a choir of angels sang and a special cherub played the most beautiful music in all the land over an ancient lyre, the same instrument that a shepherd boy named David once played to honor the God of the Psalms. 
She loved Fran with all her heart, her mind, and her soul. And she wanted to shout it out to the whole world that there was a love that would never end, never grow old, never die. She needn’t say a word, however. Her devotion and adoring demeanor spoke volumes to those of us meeting the lucky couple for the first time in Philadelphia, my City of Brotherly Love, on Friday night, the summer solstice.
Love shone all around Deborah when she spoke of Fran, and a well-disguised, shy girl from within her nearly blushed as her lover looked deep into her eyes to acknowledge an almost palpable affection. Light from a thousand stars sparkled from their mutual smile, their caressing eyes, their in-tune and synchronized hearts, which seemed to beat as one.
Saring Unconditional Love with Each Other
Taking her hand, Fran walked alongside this beauty of a woman, offering a silent prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving step by step through the long summer night, the longest night of the couple’s young lives. Too soon, they disappeared from view, leaving behind just a memory and an image of what any one of us would give a million dollars to have: the unconditional love of another human being, another man, another woman, even for but one moment of a gay, rich life.
Here’s to Deborah and Francesca. Two women in love. True Love among true lovers, if you have ever seen it in this or any other lifetime!
* * * *
They were a sight to see and to glorify when you need to recall what love could be, and is, all about. The purest emotion God created for His creatures to share with Him and with one another, sans color, creed, national origin, or sexual orientation. Love has always been color-blind and gender-neutral for the young and old, the sick and the well, the poor and the not-so-poor; even for a 64-year-old whose soul mate just turns out to be a 21-year-old.
Love has triumphed in our world. It’s exploded into space, signally all the many universes that Planet Earth will allow all love to flourish from whatever source or sex it manifests.
Okay to Love and Marry, says Supreme Court
Today, I am Gay. Today, all of us are as Gay as we would like to be or not to be. That is the question the US Supreme Court answered in a shout to the entire world that all who love will never be prosecuted or persecuted for whom they choose to fall in love.
I feel elated and so happy for those who have hidden themselves for far too long. We, society, could not see until now that love is not confined to procreation. It can’t be regulated and legalized only to those wearing opposite types of clothes or having genital differences. Love arises in all of God’s children, no matter how dissimilar one person might be to you or to me.
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Fall in Love, Everyone.
Fall for anyone you like. Fall in love again with someone you don’t even like but stay together for the sake of the children. It’s legal. It’s holy. It’s fun!
It’s as gay as gay can be, and it’s all free for you to be or not to be.
Happy Mothers’ Day, Poor Little Thérèse
How could I – a mother of two with a 10-year drug problem – be facing a life sentence for something stupid I did at the local Rite Aid store? 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.
A tattoo figured prominently in the last case I tried as a public defender in Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was to be my final court battle. Post-traumatic stress (PTSD) had taken its toll on me, and I thought two weeks of treatment at an inpatient veterans’ clinic would cure the rage and anger that had led to three near-brawls in the courtroom. Turns out I needed the full 10-week course and a complete resignation from 20 years of stress as a trial attorney.
The Philadelphia District Attorney had charged my client with robbery as well as harassment and stalking in a case we were to try before a judge hearing the facts without a jury. The police report said he had repeatedly called his ex-girlfriend at her place of work and eventually stole a cell phone from her.
Plead Guilty Now while Charges are Lowered
I wanted him to plead guilty when I got the charges lowered to just misdemeanors. In addition, he would have had to pay for the phone. He refused the offer, demanding to go to trial and get a chance to walk out of court free with only probation.
Violent, ugly visions popped into my head. I saw myself pushing my client’s head through the flat-white-colored wall in the tiny conference room cut out of a section of the courtroom. I yelled at him and asked whom he thought the judge would believe, him or the articulate girl who would have all the sympathy in the world when she told her story as outlined in her statement to the police?
I told him that a misdemeanor conviction would not keep him from getting a job. Most employers ask only if you’ve been convicted of a felony, the more serious offense. “Hell,” I said, “you could tell them the truth if you pleaded guilty to a minor offense to get away from an ex-girlfriend who was out for revenge for breaking up with her.”
Words Taken Right Out of my Mouth
“That’s exactly what happened, Mister Contos,” he said. “And I won’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do.”
The trial went as I expected. The young, attractive African America woman was not only sympathetic, she spoke with a ring of truth while testifying. She said he had constantly called her house and her place of work. Despite her pleas with him to stop, he’d increased the calls and even threatened to confront her at work, she said, if he couldn’t get his way.
However, her story started to unravel under cross-examination. She produced no evidence to support her allegation. There were no phone records, no recordings of a castoff or angry ex-lover, no other witnesses.
Cross Examination Reveals a Different Story
It turned out that the defendant did confront her at work, and that he did take the cell phone from her. But she said it was his cell phone that he had given to her when their relationship was healthy and loving.
I knew we had raised reasonable doubt when I asked a question my client requested, I pose when whispering to me at the defense table, and she was just about to step down from the witness stand.
“Yes, I do have a tattoo,” she answered. “Yes, it’s his name,” she added, nodding in the direction of the man she accused.
My client testified persuasively that she was the real “stalker” after he broke off the relationship. I introduced “good character” evidence, which, in and of itself, could raise a reasonable doubt for a not-guilty verdict, and the judge acquitted him of all charges, explaining that he could not decide who was telling the truth and that, therefore, by law, he must find in favor of the defendant.
The tatoo provided the basis for some other truth to be analyzed.
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
IN HOT WATER AT THE LOCAL GYM!
I never knew the hot water I’d get in at a local gym until I waded into a hot tub and saw one of the gym staffers assault a fellow bather when he paid more attention to the person he was speaking to via headphones than the operations manager, who yanked at his headset, telling him to “Get the Hell Out“. Continue reading
A change in time helps change my reality
Reality shifted on me the other day, and it helped me realize that I have more control than my “resifted” thoughts allowed me to see. Now, with a “time-control outlook,” I can try to change my world for the better.  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
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
All-women jury renders “unknown” verdict
The one and only time I stood before an all-women jury, I ended up asking for a mistrial after the judge and prosecutor entered the jury deliberation room without my knowledge and in violation of the sequestration rule to safeguard against jury tampering.  Continue reading
Love & Comfort Your Self on Sick Days
There’s something about getting sick on a day off that allows me to feel sorry for myself free of all guilt. I take pity on myself; I baby myself; I pamper myself. Nothing prevents me from going “easy” on myself and refraining from pushing to get something done. 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
These are the True Signs of Our Times!
When I read the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were unfocused and without a coherent message, I took a closer look at them in Philadelphia, and discovered some were disheveled street persons looking for handouts, and one was a graduate school political science major spouting Marxist teaching.
They represented only one percent.
The remaining 99 percent of the other protestors were mostly young, highly educated, unemployed or underemployed men and women who got tired of the debt-ceiling fiasco and took to the streets to mobilize against the Tea Party followers.  Continue reading
“For the Signs, they are a ‘Changing'”
(From Part I, These are true signs of our Times/)
The greatest protest of our generation is seeking change in all shapes and sizes. You can see it in the signs the demonstrators carry, writing the letters out really big with magic markers so that passersby need not squint to get the messages.
There is not just one message, but many, which all have one thing in common: a belief that our world can do better for all and not just the few, the ninety-nine percent making $55,000 a year (per family) or less, as opposed to the one percent controlling some 40 percent of the wealth in the United States of America.
They don’t want your money, Mr. Entrepreneur, only your attention for a moral and ethical way of life that takes into consideration more than the Almighty Dollar.  Continue reading
You ask me: ‘WHY I AM A DEMOCRAT?’
Why am I a Democrat?
I was born this way.
No, that’s not right.
I was raised this way.
No, that’s not right either.
I chose to be a Democrat.  Continue reading
Setbacks Arise in Road to Life’s Answers
Kabbalah To Mingle With Buddhist Jaunt
Acupuncture: ‘Dragon drives out Demon’
Kabbalah pulling here, there, everywhere
Nature changes its rhythm just in time
Rabbits scamper at Conshohocken home
Compliments lift spirits, ages you nicely
Secret code broken by number of rings
Who needs glasses to see your self within?
You man a job right, job’ll right the man
Jobs have a way of defining us. We become “the job,” or rather grow into what we perceive to be the “ideal performer“ of that job. Whether we like it or not. The job. Or ourselves.  Continue reading
Short Stature Grows Larger With Love
A taste of heaven offered here on earth
Meditation helps writer find a gem within
Hard to believe it got up for TV viewing
Injustice should make us all ‘go berserk’
Swimming makes the heart ‘go’ fonder
“Smile, breathe and go slowly”~ Thich Nhat Hanh Continue reading
Going AWOL helps a boy grow into a man
Conceal the word until all are ready for it
Seeking the ‘Bliss Queen’ in Philadelphia
Buy yourself a friend – read his good word
“Make yourself a Rav, and buy for yourself a friend.”
— Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Perachya Continue reading
The Great Awakening can be hard on a guy
Saying ‘I Love You’ over & over again!
Living like I’m one of ‘All God’s Creatures’
Can Hell Actually Be Just ‘Other People?’
A tough road makes journey a little easier
Impeachment turns a loser into a winner
Bestowing spirit & essence to a new friend
Pitching pennies provides pinch per police
Radio Plays to My No. 1 Heart’s Desire
Abraham, Martin & John Live On Within
College Life repeats itself each generation
St. Michael strikes and heals all at once
Act of Contrition Helps Regain My Purity
Hawk carries HSPs to their highest ideals
‘I confess!’ I cut school with Franny O
Nature Provides Bird’s Eye View of Living
Kabbalah ‘receiving’ helps me in ‘giving’
Angels re-enter when you’re open to ’em
‘Open your eyes’ to journey of Lifetime
Women Elevate all our Desire for God
Can ‘spiritual indigestion’ be all that bad?
When coincidence occurs, look out & in!
Conspiracy of Love to Heal Us All, Now!
‘Five Jaunts’ create a life-long harmony
Monkey see, and, alas, Monkey will do
Spiritual wars should end at a dinner table
Psalm 46: Continue reading
Looking for Self among all the wrong cards
Even on bad days, music can lift me higher
Hello! What would God do if He was you?
Oleg guides me on a “make ‘believe’ ” path
Labyrinth opens a hidden maze inside me
Animals feel freed after Rooster’s absence
Speaking truth ain’t easy but always right
Revenge could change, once ‘you’ change
Soft pretzels, a Philadelphia comfort food
Taking first steps on the Kabbalah path
Goin’ to farm; pick blueberries barefooted
Spirituality’s fun, whether you like it or not
Don Quixote battles PTSD in Philly courts
I never felt more like Don Quixote than when I represented a woman charged with a crime.
And while I didn’t want it, I’d feel called to “champion” her, even when it cost me my reputation, my sanity and my very career as a trial attorney.  Continue reading
Contoveros 