A Beacon of Light

For what are you grateful this morning?

“Act as if everything  depended on you;  trust as if everything  depended on God.”St. Ignatius of Loyola About six months ago, my friend and former colleague, Pierce Murphy, invited me to join him on a long walk in September. Pierce currently lives in West Virginia, so I asked where this walk would take place. He…

“The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.”George R. Martin

“A marriage that  can survive a nightly  game of Yahtzee  can survive anything.” Unknown 41 years of marriage. Like most (all?) marriages, ours has had it’s ups and downs. In the long run, marriages are often strengthened not by grand romantic gestures or getaways to exotic locations, but by small, repeated moments of connection. Kathy and…

“You will never look  back on life and think,  ‘I’ve spent too much  time with my  grandchildren.’” Author Unknown I’ve been focused on gratitude for almost twenty years now.  There is much I’ve learned about being grateful. One particular lesson is this: Gratitude becomes more meaningful when it is connected to the people we love.…

“However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. Where there’s life, there’s hope.” Stephen Hawking

“The last of the  human freedoms:  to choose one’s  attitude in any  given set of  circumstances.” Viktor Frankl I first read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning in the fall of 1976. It was assigned reading for a Spiritual Autobiographies course at Santa Clara University. There are a number of memorable quotes from this book…

“The service stations  are centers of business  and conversation…  they are like the  old general stores.” John Steinbeckin Travels with Charley “Fill ‘er up!” Now there’s a phrase you don’t hear any more. The term “service station” itself is basically obsolete here in California, where patrons must pump their own gas and, in many cases,…

“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” Audre Lorde

“To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.” Tia Walker My previous blog post mentions that I’m “On Vacation” until September 1st. This has not changed, yet I feel compelled to write this blog post tonight. It was on this date four years ago that I had the honor of spending the…