Thanks, Mom!

I got one of my most important and memorable life lessons from my mother on Saturday, August 11, 1962, the day "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," by Neil Sedaka, hit No.1 on the American "Billboard Hot 100."  I was 13 years old.  I was alone, listening on the radio - as I often did - to the countdown of popular songs in my room at our home in Mount Carmel, Connecticut, USA. I loved that song.  I was thrilled that it was Number One in the nation.  

After listening to the song all the way through, I rushed downstairs to share my joy.  I found my mother in the kitchen.  As I recall, she was calmly moving toward my approach - doubtless alerted by the sound of my clomping feet - wiping her hands on a dish towel.

"Screeching" to a halt in front of her, I yelled, "Mom! Mom! My favorite song just hit Number One!  That means I have good taste!!"

Looking me in the eye calmly and lovingly, she asked, "It does?"

That's the moment I learned that liking what's popular just means I have average taste.  Whether it's good or bad is just an opinion.  

I still love that song, and I still love a lot of popular music - and other things and activities that are popular.  I like things and activities because I love how they make me feel. But how I choose to fit which things I love into my life - whether and how acting on my love for what I love serves me - is personal, experiential - and important.

 

Heaven: a thought experiment

A dear friend of mine believes that, because I have not accepted Jesus as my Savior, he will not see me in Heaven. His belief makes him sad. To him, apparently, whatever Heaven is - a place, a state, a community, an experience? - those who get there do so only after death and by virtue of having believed certain things during life.

I accept that my friend's beliefs are right and true for him. And if, after I die, some disembodied spirit with my identity discovers that there is a Heaven and that I am disqualified from it, so be it: my post-death identity may have no memory of having striven to live up to my blessings in this life, but I am at peace, now, with doing the best I can see to do to be a good person.

Also, my friend's beliefs about Heaven are not the only rational beliefs on the subject. About what happens after death, most of the people on this planet have different beliefs - to which they are as entitled as my friend is to his. Facts are facts, but I think beliefs are an individual matter which should be judged, if at all, by how well they serve the living soul who holds them, and perhaps, too, by how well they serve the believer's community.

So I suggest a thought experiment.  

Suppose the Gospel of Thomas (one of the "Gnostic Gospels" discovered in Egypt in 1945) is correct that Jesus said, "the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it."*  

Suppose "the kingdom of the father" is Heaven, or as close to synonymous as most of us can grasp or imagine.

Suppose we humans in fact do not see Heaven - the kingdom of God - because we cannot: it is within us, each of us, individually.** I cannot see it within myself or within you.  You cannot see it within yourself or within me.

Suppose next that seeing is not the only way to prove that something exists.

Suppose that experiencing something exists is - for the one having the experience - a completely sufficient proof that that thing exists, even if it is impossible to create that experience in another person so as to give them that proof. 

Now imagine the experience of Heaven; of being in Heaven, whether it is a place, a state, a community, or simply an experience.  Your imagination will be as good at this task as anyone else's.  Indeed, out of the billions of people on this planet, how could your imagination of the experience of heaven - change as it may over time - NOT be the one and only conception of Heaven that is most relevant to your life and choices?  

That's the end of the thought experiment: your own imagining - the best you can do - of the experience of Heaven.  I hope it is for you a most wonderful experience - particularly because it may include wonderful things, even unconscious memories, which are unique to your life experience and indescribable to others.

In case my imagining of Heaven may resonate with yours, I will share it: to me, Heaven is the experience that everything - all that I know and all that I do not know - is all right just the way it is.  I do not expect to have that experience except occasionally, briefly, in this life.  Nor do I expect to have that experience much more often, let alone constantly, after I die - wherever or whatever Heaven turns out actually to be!  But I strive to live - particularly to pay attention to Life - so as to have, to savor, and to be grateful for more and more of the experience that everything is all right just the way it is. Love is always present at such moments. And such moments can include experiencing Heaven in others - whether or not, at any given moment, they experience its presence within themselves.

* Gospel of Thomas, saying number 113. 

** See New Testament, Gospel of Luke, Ch. 17, verse 21: "the Kingdom of God is within you." 

Forgetting the Holy Spirit (however named) within

Vacation: "what's the big deal," when one is retired? But this morning my wife and I were preparing for what is a big deal for us: a rare reunion in a distant town with all 4 of her children, all 3 of mine, all 7 wonderful spouses, and all 12 grandchildren. 

I was rushing - busy with tasks that seemed important, including packing. I was anxious about forgetting things. And I was late: not ready when I told my punctual wife I would be. I was cranky, stressed and feeling sorry for myself. I was not good company. 

Once in the car, driving, I reflected on what went wrong. Here's what I realized: I had been trying to do it all - complete pre-departure tasks, avoid failure (to keep my word), be grateful and joyful at the prospect of the reunion - alone. 

I realized that, for relief, for a return to peace, I had only to pause and remember to ask the Holy Spirit (however named) which is within each of us, even me -

"This I am, but Thou please aid me."* 

The response is rarely in ideas, let alone words.

The response is the experience of the presence of grace.

* Quotation from A Testament of Devotion (1941), by Thomas Kelly.

Reality check #26 (Mantra of the moment)

I am doing what I am doing. 

All those other things I could be doing - I am not doing those!

I strive to be conscious of what I am doing and why I prefer doing this rather than that; rather than anything else. 

Moment to moment while conscious, when I do something - be it brave or cowardly, disciplined or lazy, prudent or frivolous, thoughtful or careless, altruistic or self-centered, kind or mean - that action will be my choice, even if I am unaware of the unconscious factors affecting my choice.

I will take responsibility for my choices, including acts of rest, play, and self-care. 

I will strive to be the best citizen, parent, spouse, friend, and neighbor I can see to be.

 

Grace

If you wish grace to come to you, be it.  Act it out. 

It is within you. Always has been. And you cannot help bring it forth for your own peace and joy when you treat other people with grace; when you make of yourself a manifestation of grace, however random and fleeting, to others.

How to see the unconscious mind at work

I am no astronomer, but I understand that black holes - invisible because they emit no light - can be located, and their mass calculated, by degree to which light emitted by other objects is bent by black holes' gravitational fields. I see a metaphor in that phenomenon to our unconscious human minds.

If I perceive something in the outer world or sense something within my body (e.g., tension or hyper-alertness), decide something, do something, or experience something - e.g., all my dreams and any conscious, sudden joy, grief, temptation or yearning - for which I have no clear and objective stimulus or reason, I know my unconscious mind is at work. 

If that seems wrong to you, or for you, think about what part of that metaphor is wrong, and why.

If it seems right, or at least reasonable, I invite you to join me in recognizing the many times and ways our unconscious minds serve us, even guide us. We can cheerfully say, mentally, "Hello, Unconscious! How are you doing? How am I doing? What can you teach me? Let's work together for a fulfilling life!" 

On Living Selfishly: new link, new thoughts

A couple years ago, I posted the link to my TED-X Youth talk “On Living Selfishly” via a Vimeo site with all six talks that day in 2022 at Choate Rosemary Hall School.  I have learned that my talk is on YouTube at the TED Talks channel:

https://youtu.be/6sUNwHXvWSU?si=BUdZ5XM1kZydc7GE 

I seem to be alone - to some, even goofy - in regarding myself as completely selfish. But it seem so obvious to me that one’s values and actions, and one’s responsibility for one’s choices, are what matter! It seems obvious, too, that self-righteousness - particularly, “I’m not selfish” - is toxic to individual happiness, community spirit, and international understanding! So I thank all who see fit to share the link to my TED-X talk.

This past week I gave an updated version of On Living Selfishly at a local service club.  I added this toward the end, after the Dr. Albert Schweitzer's great quotation: 

This is my perspective on a human condition.  However, for those who are, like me, spiritually inclined, there is a clearly holy dimension: the Creator of each of us and all of us - call it God, or Allah, or Brahman, or just Life with a capital L - gives each human being autonomy. 

Entrusted with that autonomy, though we may hope for divine inspiration, are our values, our priorities, and our actions not matters of our choice?

 

Let me share with you a story.  I think it is a Sufi story I first heard from my late mother.

 

"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten.  And, seeing them, the seeker cried, 'Great God, how is it that a loving Creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?'

 

"To which God replied, 'I did do something. I made you.'"

 

How to discern one's values

There is a perfect, infallible way to discern your values and to examine them: whatever you are doing from moment to moment is the expression, the manifestation, of your conscious and unconscious values.

If that seems wrong to you, think about what part of that logic is wrong, and why.

#confessionofaselfishman

A voice from within you?

This the Holy Spirit speaking. Call me whatever you wish: your connection to the divine; your conscience; your personal truth; your better judgment. I am no more, but no less, than the Holy Spirit within you. I am here. I am always here. And I am here for you. I care about your health and well-being. I love you and I always will. I am eager to guide you to peace of mind, healthful choices, loving and joyful relationships, and wholesome success.

If it seems otherwise, it may be that you are not listening.

It may be that other things are more important to you than paying attention to the goodness, even the holiness, within you.

It may be that it is more important to you to be right, to defend your ego, than to accept others, and yourself, without judgment.

It may simply be that it has been so long since you talked with me that you have forgotten that I am right here within you.

Now you know. Again.

- God, attrib.

April 25, 2026

Billions of people of faith around the world are, like us, doing the best they can see to do to care for their communities; to keep their loved ones and neighbors healthy, safe, at peace.

There are many different faiths - and many people who believe that there is no God or Creative Power, however named, other than the laws of nature.  And it is natural for people to want to be right about, and defend, their beliefs and those who share their beliefs. This tendency has for millennia, and still today, created countless us-versus-them conflicts, from the small and personal to the global and catastrophic.

Imagine if billions of people each lived by two fundamental human commandments or principles - thus setting an example for others: love YOUR God or Creative Power, as you believe or have experienced It to exist, and love others, whatever their beliefs, as you love yourself.

Tears, and things deep and true.

This morning I finish​ed The Four Winds, a novel by Kristin Hannah​.  The end was both sad and inspiring: I was moved to tears. When that happens, I often remember my late mother saying something like, "When tears come, you know you have found something deep and true."

To many people, crying - especially when a man cries - is a sign of weakness. Surely, it is a sign of vulnerability - but that is not a bad thing!  It is sad that many people seem unwilling to act on, or even fully experience, what is deep and true for them.  There is a lot of ​"keeping it together,​" for our self-image and others' image of us.  At what cost? Vitality? Joy? Connection?

I would rather be deeply and openly moved and inspired by stories of courage, strength, grace, perseverance, and love than be stoic at the cost of experiencing the emotions that flow from those experiences. 

I find a kind of freedom and joy in being reminded that, if we look for them, there are as many occasions for deep and true emotions as we can bear - each moment of Life, wretched and horrifying or glorious and inspiring, being uniquely amazing.

Examining reactions to unfulfilled expectations

Though shared values and beliefs in what is right and what is wrong are essential to peaceful and just societies and cultures, the perception of right and wrong varies from person to person.

How we react when our expectations are not met - in matters large and small, personal, social and political - is important to the quality of our daily lives and our relationships. Usually, there is a major subconscious aspect to our reactions to life's events, including to unfulfilled expectations. And often - because it is human to want to be right - we accept our reactions as right: we don't examine them.

Yet we decide, consciously or not, whether to accept unfulfilled expectations and find and focus on other things that brings us gratitude and joy, OR to judge ourselves wronged by disappointment - somehow victimized by Life or by another person.  

The habit of reacting to - of judging - unfulfilled expectations as wrong makes it hard for us to be happy and to maintain our relationships. In particular, the more entitled we feel to have our expectations of another person met by them - especially if we disregard how we may be failing to meet their expectations of us! - the greater the frustration and misery for both. And "minor" issues often become major ones.

So, dear readers, I invite you to join me in striving to cultivate the habit of examining our reactions to  life as it unfolds, and retaining only the helpful ones - ideally, the loving ones - as an important part of self-knowledge and being a good, peaceful and happy person, partner, friend and citizen.

Where will presidential excesses stop?

Two questions inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 query, “I should like to know, if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?”

I should like to know, if majorities in both houses of Congress stand by while the President of the United States, acting outside “his exclusive constitutional authority” (Trump v. United States, slip op. at 21), starts and escalates a war without a Declaration of War by Congress (Const. Art. I, sec. 8), where will it stop?

I should like to know, if majorities in both houses of Congress stand by while the President makes threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and the Secretary of War threatens to show “no quarter, no mercy” and not to follow “stupid rules of engagement”, which threats are “plainly illegal”; see When War Crimes Rhetoric Becomes Battlefield Reality: The Slippery Slope to Total War on Iran, M. Donovan and R. VanLandingham, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.); where will it stop?

 

Published on Substack as "Where will it stop?"  

An homage to Nathan Hale

When my time is up, I aim to repeat what my mother said were my very first words - "Lee happy" - and to have no regret that, having only one life to give to my family, my community, my country, and humanity, I gave less in that service than the best I was given to see to do.

War, dictatorship, and American voters' choices

Four days ago, without a Congressional declaration of war (Constitution Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 11), the Trump Administration joined Israel in starting a war against Iran. The U.S. government provided the location of Iran's brutal Supreme Leader so that Israel could assassinate him. Simultaneously, the U.S. began to destroy Iran's military infrastructure.  As well stated by nuclear policy analyst Joe Cirincione in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "This is not how democracies go to war. It is how dictatorships do."

We can criticize President Trump, and I do every day. But voting Americans - almost 50% of those who voted - legally elected this aspiring "I alone can fix it" strongman a second time in 2024. (Over 1/3 of citizens of voting age left the voting to others.) More, majorities of us around the country elected the members in both houses of Congress who have enabled this President by practically never challenging him.

To paraphrase Prof. Timothy Snyder, many Americans like the idea of strongman rule.  But that idea is based on the fantasy that the strongman will be good for the nation, or at least for those who believe that he will honor his office and the people and legal process that put him there. History teaches us that the strongman does not well serve, let alone unite, the nation.  He becomes a bully - a dictator.  He foments distrust between groups in society. He sows fear by false claims that some groups of citizens are criminals or traitors; by using the vast power of government in heavy-handed, even illegal, ways; and by vengeful treatment of dissenters.

Rejecting the rule of law, common civility, and citizens' criticisms of his actions, the dictator focuses on advancing his personal interests and making up justifications for doing so which he is confident his subordinates will praise and defend, his supporters will believe, and his adversaries will be too few, weak, divided, and slow-acting to challenge effectively. He will measure himself not by the integrity of his administration or the reputation, power, security and wealth of the nation, but by his own power and wealth, and that of other dictators.

The 2026 congressional elections will be crucial for the future of our nation. Life, as ever, is choices - individually and collectively. Will those of us who hold the office of citizen love our nation enough to treat our fellow citizens as we would like to be treated, to support the next generation of civic leaders, and to persevere in educating ourselves on the issues, current events, and the Trump trajectory?  Will we vote?  Will we actively urge our fellow citizens to vote and defend their right to do so without new barriers?  Will the majority of us say, by our daily actions and our votes in November, that the Trump administration and its supporters in Congress are representing us as we wish - or that we will tolerate neither a dictator as President nor his enablers?