Biographical

There’s No Place I’d Rather Be

When I brought her coffee in bed on our anniversary, as I do many mornings, I said to Dear that it’s a strange thing when the number of years we’ve been married feels bigger than the number of years we’ve been alive.

Which got me thinking: I bet that’s not an uncommon sensation for those who live in wonder at the vastness of existence.  People like us, really.

The joy we know today makes it easy to appreciate the time and pain and despair it can take to discover a peaceful heart.  It is joy born of becoming ever better at surrender, a skill enhanced by the angels of bullshit who, when necessary, wrench from our clutch whatever we mistake for serious business. Read More

Walking to Someone You Love


You commit yourself to something that is the call of your heart: kindness, a friendship, learning to love by learning to Tango, forgiving everyone for everything.…  Then you do what matters most: align that commitment with action.

Over time, as your dedication is shaped by the grist of experience, things happen that are indistinguishable from magic.  Out of nowhere, like finding a hundred dollar bill in an old shirt, you suddenly feel the ever-deeper sensation of doing that thing more completely than ever before.

You’re just that much more in harmony, that much more expansive, that much more at home.  This happened to me recently: a surge in my attunement to the drumbeat of “Only Love.”  Then, the next day, my dog Red disappeared.

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Years of Gratitude in One Minute

I recently attended my college reunion at Amherst.  Among the events was an invitation for alumni to speak about something related to the college that they were particularly grateful for––an event, a relationship, a learning that has been a big part of their life since––and (at a school where, customarily, brevity is not a virtue) to do so in one minute.

Here’s what I said:

September 1971.  The president’s reception for incoming freshman.  I was 27, the oldest freshman Amherst had ever admitted, I was told.  And, very likely, the only freshman to have graduated next-to-last in his high school class.

While I evidently did enough interesting stuff in my life to get admitted, apprehension remained.  Could I actually thrive here?

When I introduced myself to president Bill Ward, he said, “Oh, you’re the old guy.”  And then he said the most beautiful thing:  “Welcome.  You’re where you belong.  Enjoy yourself.”

Today, I help people play with provocative questions.  For instance: What should the sign say that hangs over the entrance to your organization, the sign you want every colleague to see every day?

If I were asked to answer that question for Amherst, I’d bow to Bill Ward and say: “Welcome.  You’re where you belong.  Enjoy yourself.”

The Unexpected Gift of Agony

I was recently initiated into that exclusive club: “By Far The Worst Pain I’ve Ever Experienced Or Ever Hope To.”  A few kidney stones had decided it was time leave the mother ship.  I’m told some women say it’s the equivalent of childbirth.  Perhaps the biggest gift of this assault (after the sweet kiss of lightning drugs) is its impact on my struggle with violence.  Awakened is a new depth of reality: I would never want to inflict on another the pain of my recent trips to the ER.  And that’s not always been the case.

I’m not a murderer in this life, nor is physical force my default tool for navigating the world, but its propensity, its vibration, is an intimate, familiar presence in my being from incarnations past.  Going by my father and his father, as well as my mother, I chose in this life a genetic lineage that included its fair share of rigidity, rage, control, and unpredictable violence.  That imprint is one of my sacred teachers, something I’ve needed to embrace and free.  My wife, my dearest friend for more than 40 years, who has never come close to threatening me physically, and who regularly touches me lovingly––even she finds there are still occasions when, reaching her hand to my cheek, I flinch.

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"The push to change the words “nigger” and “injun” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, because the so-called offensive nature of those terms might limit today’s readership and appreciation of that literary classic, is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we avoid taking responsibility for our feelings––and therefore miss the chance to become more awake, more whole, more useful friends to one another."

The Essay: The Gold in Niggers and Injuns