How A Poem Impacted Memorial Day
/Although I have seen people wear red poppies around memorial day, I did not realize that the tradition started from a poem!
Read MoreAlthough I have seen people wear red poppies around memorial day, I did not realize that the tradition started from a poem!
Read MoreWestern society is a culture of “doing.” Since idleness is perceived as laziness, we have little public authority to support leisure. Even our so called “time off” should be action-packed: “work hard, play hard.” We rarely allow ourselves true rest. Do you pack your “time off” with activity? Do you still feel the weight of the undone on your to-do list when you try to rest? When or under what circumstances do you allow yourself to truly rest?
Read MoreWhat is Christmas? Some days have deep grooves in our collective mind, holding mythic dreams and apocryphal stories, dubious in fact while truthful in form. What we celebrate today, that an eternal God could be born into a mortal body...
Read MoreToday, we sing our praises as the "land of the free and the home of the brave.” I wonder though, is any freedom granted from without meaningful if we are not free within? And vice versa, how can we exercise our inner freedom if our outer freedom is severely suppressed? This letter to my future self was written on November 9, 2016, after the unbelievable and shocking election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, and scheduled to be read on July 4, 2017.
Read MoreThis is Martin Luther King's legacy: that we face the truth of our lives, that we look hard and deep to determine if the life we live matches the creed we speak; that we look at the world we participate in creating and ask, from our hearts: is this the world we want to pass on to our great grandchildren?
Read MoreWord the World in a way that brings you to life and life to you!
Join Nick's Mailing List:
Note:
Your in box will not be inundated and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Recent Poems:
In our everyday encounters with others, whether strangers, acquaintances, friends, or family, we carry on two conversations: one is the everyday talk at the surface; the other is the a deeper sould-to-soul conversation. What mght we besaying to each other onthat deeper level?
I wrote the poem A Day Like Any Other while sitting on my patio in the early monring, listening to the birds. To me they seem to sing with such joy and wonder, as if to say “This is another day, another day like no other.”
Recent Blog Posts:
The pandemic has forced many of us to short our attention away from the outer world and thrust into our own inner world. The concepts of achievement and success that drive us in the outer world do not apply in the inner world. This leaves many of us lost, confused, and frightened. Now the we are reduced to the essentials, we have a chance to re-imagine our relationship with ourselves, with life, and therefore, with the world. In other words, it has stripped away some of what came between us and life. What brings you closer to life?
For me, Easter is not a question of faith. It is the acknowledgment of the awakened spirit, a kind of rising up to animate, or re-animate, the inert body, or to restore spirit to the inertia of one's life. And in this time of isolation, sheltered in our homes, we have a chance to re-animate our ives and the world in which we live. What new spirit do you wish to bring to life?
The pandemic calls us to turn inward, to look inside ourselves, to return to the heart and ask ourselves: what is essential in our lives? What do you think the virus is calling you to do?