A cobble by itself is just a small stone, but when many of them lay together they create a path . My life is made up of many discrete parts. I have to find ways to fit them all into place so that I can continue to journey where I desire to go. This blog records some of the cobbles that create my path.

Convention wrap up

The convention is over. The boxes are packed and hauled away for shipping and storage. Nothing went wrong. There were no disasters. I can feel myself unwinding, relaxing. This whole event has been a very stressful one for me. It was filled with things I knew I could do, [...]

Thoughts on ambition in the absense thereof

My ambition appears to be AWOL right now. Not surprisingly in the absence of ambition, I’m finding it hard to feel stressed about this. I would probably be more worried about it, but it has done this before. My ambitious drive is somewhat similar to my childhood dog who would periodically escape [...]

Church and Conventions

Our business includes attendance at conventions which tend to take place over an entire weekend. We attend a church which reveres the Sabbath day and includes a command to keep it holy. I sometimes feel conflicted by the coexistence of these two facts. I do my best to find a middle ground [...]

Teaching the Children

One of the heaviest responsibilities for me as a parent is to make sure that my children are firmly grounded in the religious beliefs that I hold dear. This is primarily important because of what I believe about this life and life hereafter, but it is also important because faith has been an essential [...]

Cadbury Eggs, change, and life after death

When I was a child Cadbury eggs were the epitome of Easter goodness. I saw them on TV. There was this bunny who would wiggle his nose while making chicken noises and then hop away leaving the egg behind. A pair of hands would demonstrate how the chocolate shell was filled [...]

Homes and Places

The discussion of Place in Native American culture was brief, a mere footnote to an undergraduate lecture on Native American Arts. But I was fascinated by the concept that some locations are more than a set of coordinates or a landscape. Some locations have a spirit to them which makes them sacred, [...]

The Working Desk

Desks are surfaces on which one piles Things To Do. My piles of things always begin as neat stacks, but the stacks quickly encroach upon each other. New layers are constantly added to the top, while the lower layers are slowly squished into the paper equivalent of sedimentary rock. In theory desks [...]

A Snowy Walk to Church

The snow was one of those ultra-fine powders that is a mere glitter in the air rather than proper snow flakes. Not much had accumulated. There was a bare fraction of an inch coating the ground as I left to walk to church. I was late, Howard and the kids had gone [...]

The things I don’t write about

I have been gathering and revising blog entries into a book of essays. I intend for the book to have five categories exploring my interactions with family, community, myself, my work, and God. The category that I am having the hardest time filling is the last one. This is not for lack [...]

Gifts of the Storm

I’ve been feeling lots of decade resonance lately. Things that happened 10 years ago are coming back in unexpected ways. We’ve been watching kid movies that were the 10-years-ago favorites. Howard met a man at the gym who was in the cardiac care unit at the same time he was ten years [...]