In 2018, I had the busiest year, having taken more appointed cases than ever. I completed revisions on a novel, which now sits in an agent’s hands. I saw more of Michigan than I ever had in the past – including Mackinac Island and the U.P. – and photographed the Detroit City FC season with …
December 31, 2015. What are my goals for the New Year? None! For a period in my life I swam in the waters of “positive thinking”; of goal-setting with the focus on living in prosperity. I read the books and listened to the cassettes, and attended a church that was infused with what Oliver Burkeman …
This Vinyl Memory is not about a record from my past. My distant past, anyway. The first time I listened to it was less than a week ago. I was in my basement, where the turntable sits and spins when I am either free-writing by hand or doing some other arranging, organizing, or sorting through …
This book review covers five books which I’ve recently completed reading. At first, the common thread was unintentional. But after discovering that I was in the middle of reading three books by authors who are Buddhist, I added two more. Just because they are Buddhist authors, that does not necessarily mean that the topics …
Remember these high school assignments: Write a 500-word essay on _____. The struggle. The agony. Five hundred words? How many pages is that? You’d write something, then count the words. Only three hundred and ten? How am I going to add another one hundred and ninety words to that? (Yes, I know. Today’s word processors …
Serial, a 1980 comedy, puts regular guy Harvey Holroyd (Martin Mull) in a community of New Age philosophy, cults, and sexual freedom in Marin County, California, that tears at the fabric of his family. His wife, Kate, (Tuesday Weld), participates in a women’s consciousness raising group that is only too happy to point out Harvey’s …
The editors of Shambhala Sun recently listed the ten dharma books every Buddhist should have in their library (and I would assume have read at least once). Two of them (When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki) are in my library and I certainly would recommend them. …
I read a recent article by Melvin McLeod, editor-in-chief of Shambhala Sun, on the growing numbers of Americans who do not identify themselves as a member of any religion. He writes that the “spiritually but not religious” group of Americans are ” the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. Generally, they’re educated, liberal, and open-minded, with a deep …
The Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, I was involved in the first car accident since the State of Michigan granted me a driver’s license decades ago. Fortunately, no one was injured, other than our vehicles. My car was towed to the insurance-covered body shop for assessment. At first, I thought it was totaled. I could …
This evening, I took the garbage out to the curb. On my way back to the house I noticed something odd. There was a doughnut on the window sill. I had to pause. Why is there a doughnut on my window sill? Who put it there? When? It couldn’t have been my mother-in-law, who lives …
Do Haeng Michael Kitchen 