On Living Selfishly - link to video

In 2022, I gave a TED-X Youth talk entitled "On Living Selfishly." In that talk, I assert my view that I am 100 percent selfish; that, even when I serve others, I am tied (with everyone who admits complete selfishness) for the distinction of being the most selfish person alive. To explain this view, I invite the audience - soon perhaps including you - to consider whether it helps simplify our lives, clarify our values, goals and communications, and improve our relationships to acknowledge, at least sometimes, being selfish.

Here is the link: https://events.locallive.tv/events/78964  (My talk starts at ~37 minutes.)

If you watch, thank you. There is so much self-righteousness and finger-pointing in society. This talk aims to reduce that. Because admitting our natural selfishness inoculates us against both criticizing others for being selfish and against getting upset if someone calls us selfish, I hope you find the talk valuable enough to share.

January 28, 2024

What would we do, and how would we feel, if we more often - more often toward constancy - connected to, trusted, and allowed ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit within each of us; the Holy Spirit of love?

Reality check #22

Where am I right now on these scales?

Truthfulness with self and others versus evasion or deception?

Love versus apathy or judgment?

Self-discipline versus comfort or laziness?

Gratitude versus entitlement?

Courage versus "not my job"?

December 31, 2023

December 24, 2023

As we end the present year to begin a new one, let us release any lingering fears, anxieties, grudges and regrets. 

Let us, guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, forgive every person who we perceive, whatever their intent may have been, to have treated us badly — and forgive ourselves for any such acts toward others.

Let us, confident in the Holy Spirit's constant presence and guidance to all who seek it, greet the new year free of fear and fatigue from the past, and full of renewed hope and intention to do our best to bring peace and healing wherever we go.

December 10, 2023

 We can open ourselves to awakening again and again to the joys and mysteries of biology, astronomy, and all of Nature.

We can awaken again and again to new joys, intrigues, and mysteries of the mind; of the intellect.

So also, moment to moment, we can awaken freshly to the joys, guidance, and mysteries of the Holy Spirit within each of us and, in doing so, deepen our relationship with that Spirit.

November 26, 2023

I only remember one lesson from First Day School — Quaker Sunday School — sixty some years ago in New Haven, Connecticut.  The late Wight Bakke told us that one of the things we kids could think about, could ask ourselves, during silent worship was this: “What, this past week, could I have done better?”

Perhaps because it’s the only one I remember, that suggestion comes back to me from time to time.  And, for the first time this morning decades later, I see something new in it.  When I ask myself from the heart — when anyone asks themselves — “What, this past week, could I have done better?” the Holy Spirit within each of us, whether or not we are aware of it, hears the question and, knowing us and what we have done that week, helps us to answer it.

This morning I see, too, that the Holy Spirit within each person is always there to help us to grow; to help us find within ourselves wholesome and practical answers to any question as we go through Life.  And the more attentive we are to the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the deeper our connection to that Spirit becomes.

October 8, 2023

“Do your best and let your reputation take care of itself.”

I have never received better advice than that. That advice, from an esteemed colleague, was given regarding judicial service but, to me, it applies to every situation, every undertaking, and every relationship.

In particular, that advice applies well to my relationship with the Holy Spirit, for I believe that even God does not ask us to do more than the best we can see to do in any situation.  If I do that — if, guided by the Spirit within, I do my best to represent love and grace in this life — I can be confident that my reputation with the Holy Spirit, and my reputation with other people, will be as good as I can make them.