OM To save time… 5 Nov 201814 Nov 2018 I have several t-shirts that are hand-me-downs from my husband. After one too many hot-wash-and-dries (a laundry requirement when I'm a cancer patient living with an elementary-age child and a…
OM The Five Recollections 31 Oct 201828 Feb 2019 I've read a fair bit about Buddhism, but this is the first time I've stumbled across these teachings summed up in quite this way. The Five Recollections are kinda youchie.…
OM The Cost of Cancer Treatment, Part 2 8 Oct 20188 Oct 2018 I've talked about this before. And I'm pleased to report that, despite their representative's assertion, BCBS has, in fact, been paying for my care. Originally, I was looking at anything…
Sermon Sermon on Ecstatic States 30 Sep 201830 Sep 2018 The existence of mystical states absolutely overthrows the pretension of non-mystical states to be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe. —William James, The Varieties of Religious…
OM Thrill of a Gain 21 Sep 201821 Sep 2018 A platitude is precisely what is left of a truth after it has been drained of all emotion. --Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind, P. 251 Positive thinking experts…
OM Resonance 4 Sep 20184 Sep 2018 One of the joys of being a compulsive reader is finding resonances between books I'm reading concurrently. If I'm cynical about this phenomenon, it's part confirmation bias and part "nothing…
OM The Poison Path 31 Jul 201811 Sep 2019 I've written about peacocks before. In Buddhism, the peacock is a good and powerful symbol. The ancient myth is that a peacock’s brilliant plumage is created by the peacock’s eating…
Sermon Sermon on Reading 14 Jun 20181 Aug 2018 For my father’s birthday a few years ago, I gave him a signed first edition of Brian Jay Jones’ book, Washington Irving: The Definitive Biography of America's First Bestselling Author.…
Sermon Sermon on Gifts 24 May 201824 May 2018 My grandmother's profound gift was to dare to believe that, perhaps, there was nothing she couldn't do just because she was a girl. This is a far more difficult gift…
OM X Marks the Spot 3 May 20183 May 2018 In The Emperor of All Maladies, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote, "[T]he statistical confluence of a rare profession and a rare tumor [can] swiftly identif[y] the causal agent of [a] cancer."…
