The 2024 solar eclipse has come and gone. According to Wikipedia, over 50 million people viewed it in its totality. Many, like me, traveled long distances to experience this astronomical phenomenon. One more event in…
Recent Posts
Triduum (Holy Week) Poems
A few Original Poems for the Triduum ( Holy Week) Happy Easter Bob Maundy Thursday A few years of companionship, exhortations, admonishments—and now his time is at end, his words carefully chosen. I sit…
A Pilgrimage in Parallel: Holy Land and Clayton Co Jail
A Pilgrimage in Parallel by Bob Toohey
Common Witness: Uncommon Experience
One morning at my study, as I was hard at work daydreaming, my eyes fell on a picture of me with all of my siblings. In this photo, there were nine of us. My youngest…
Information Overload and The Struggle Towards Simplicity
I heard in a webinar this week that the average person today reads, hears, or in some way is exposed to over one-hundred thousand words a day. That is about two medium-sized novels or books…
The Silent Years
I was reading about the “Silent Years” of Jesus. It made me curious. What the world knows of Jesus is the short three years of his public ministry—three years packed with the most astounding events…
When Trouble Comes: Moving from Disturbed to Peace
“My life has been spent wandering from place to place. It has been short and filled with trouble….” Gen 47:9 Gloom, despair, and agony on me Deep, dark depression, excessive misery If it weren’t for…
The Place We Are Planted
“His Roots Grasped New Soil” – Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous “Wherever you go, go with all your heart!” -Confucius I spent my grade school and early high school years in…
Re-Discover Joy: Breathing Under Water
My wife recently pulled off a great birthday surprise for me. It is a small black portable record player, along with two albums– “Who’s Next”, and “Abbey Road”. I have never mentioned wanting a record…
The Art of Giving
The Art of Giving It is Christmas time- the season of special music, lights, social and family gatherings, city and church events, parades, and of course, shopping for, wrapping, and giving gifts. The giving of…
Go Ahead Then– Fail Again, Fail Better
The living room of my piano teacher was jammed with parents and students sitting quietly, politely, hands folded on their laps, waiting for me to begin. My mom and dad sat in the middle of…
A History of Work
When you are raised in an Irish-Catholic home with nine other brothers and sisters, you learn early on that you have a role in the family. Our roles required each of us to carry…
The Long Journey Home
I am guilty of “Geographic Idolatry”— thinking I am already in heaven here in the Puget Sound. Over the last twenty years my wife and I have made a home for ourselves in the Pacific…
Family Vacations
There are certain markers in our lives that remind us of who we were at various stages of growing into who we will be– markers like the different homes we have lived in, the cars…
A Good Life Takes Practice
“Practice makes perfect”. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” These concepts of practice were drilled into me long ago, beginning when I sat down to my first piano lesson at six…
Stargazing
This year my wife gave me a very nice telescope for Christmas. I am not sure what triggered this. I have never asked for one. Yet, I think she knew well my interest in…
Together Fifty Years : A Brief Accounting
So you asked ” How did you and mom stay in love for fifty years?” I guess the best way to respond is to tell the story. Every relationship starts the same. You begin with…
Gratitude Works Best in Hard Times
It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. Brother David Stiendl-Rast These are hard times.Because of this pandemic, most of us will not be able to join our…
Finding and Keeping Friends: Some thoughts for my grandchildren
God knows our desire to be known and to be loved! He made us for companionship. Our friends can be the greatest source of love, healing, joy, and encouragement. Finding and keeping good friends has been…
TRUE NORTH: Can our Nation Identify and Lead by Objective Values?
On the week of this, the 2020 presidential election, it appears my country has before it an opportunity to come out from under one of the most bitter and divisive periods in recent history. I…
Why Not Become A Saint?
“The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” Leon Bloy (from La Femme Pauvre) In the nineteen-fifties, Catholic Elementary schools had several objectives, including providing…
The Parable of the Sower and Recovering from Addictions
Parables are pictures formed by words that illustrate deeper principles. They stick to our minds through their blend of vividness and truth. And their truth often has more than one application. I have been under…
Get Rid of Your Clutter and Yearn for Less
“I have hardly any desires, but if I were born again, I would have none at all.” St. Francis De Sales “It’s the heart that gives; the fingers just let go.” – proverb from the…
Breaking News
There are two realities living side by side today. One is the reality described in the relentlessness of twenty-four/seven media coverage with its partner– social network commentary. The other is the reality of my physical,…
Magnificent Obsessions: What I am Learning from Learning
It’s a Long Way It’s a long way the sea-winds blow Over the sea-plains blue, — But longer far has my heart to go Before its dreams come true. It’s work we must, and love…
A Letter to My Companion
“Traveler, there is no road. The road is made by walking” Antonio Machado Traveler “I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a close friend, following me in the…
“Dirty Hands”
The Puget Sound Poetry Connection (PSPC) anthology “Aria 2020” is out. I was pleased to have two of my poems selected for inclusion in this wonderful volume of poetry by local poets. I Had a…
When Life Codes Disappear
The images on the television are haunting. And they are relentless. They pile on me until I can somehow feel rather than simply hear the dying black man cry “I can’t breathe”. I see the…
Life in My Cell: An Experiment in Self-Quarantine
“Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Abba Moses It is now over ninety days of our state’s “Stay-At-Home” orders. I laugh at the creativity the world is showing while…
Tahoma and Its People: A Natural History of Mount Rainier National Park-Book Review
Tahoma and Its People: A Natural History of Mount Rainier National Park, by the author Jeff Antonelis-Lapp, is that and so much more. In his wonderful account, Antonelis-Lapp weaves a beautifully lyrical story of this…
If You Want a Good Life, Learn to Say This…..
In the fall of 1973, I married a beautiful red-headed, abundantly freckled Irish girl. We were busy playing husband and wife in a tiny apartment on the edge of the University of Alabama campus where…
When “Stay-At-Home” becomes “Holy Leisure”
It is Sunday morning—week number seven of our “Stay-At-Home” order from the State due to the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic. My wife sits at the kitchen table working on a water-color painting for a family member,…
What Do I See? A Writing Prompt
Writing these little essays is anything but automatic. I struggle for weeks just deciding what I want to write about—what interests me today? What am I curious about, what worries me, what inspires me? I…
Living a Forced Lent
For Christians around the world, early spring brings with it the bright sadness of the Lenten season—a season of fasting, of abstinence, of giving, of prayer, and of self-reflection. We who practice the Lenten pillars of…
Walking Through Anxious Times
“Ours is a time of anxiety, because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by some force from outside.” …
Effects of My Quarantine: Seeing Beauty Again
I will begin here. The sun is shining. I look out my office window, where the plumb tree is now in full bloom—its pink, west facing blossoms irradiated by the falling sun, and I listen…
A Hidden Life: Reflecting on Terrance Malick’s latest film
“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number…
The Noon-Day Demon: When God is Gone
“And the three men I admire most The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The day the music died” Don Mclean Dejection and despair are…
A World Without Compassion– and How to Bring it Back
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” Plato Indications are everywhere that as a society we are losing our capacity for compassion– a basic element of what it means to be…
Peace I Give to You
Yes, today’s world is turbulent. Whether or not it is any more than past generations, centuries, or millenniums, I will let the historians work that out. I do know that even the smallest doses of…
Stumbling Towards Purpose
“I am thinking about the days We led ourselves astray In more than many ways… Where will be tomorrow? What will we see today?” “Here” by America It is deep in the middle of the…
Poetry in the Park 2019
I was proud to represent my local poetry group Puget Sound Poetry Connection at this years Poetry In the Park in Redmond, WA. Here is a short clip of my reading. I hope you enjoy. 2019 Poetry…
The Way of Love: Lessons From My Spiritual Journey
Before there was a Christian Religion, there was a growing cult that followed the teachings of a man who was believed to have been raised from the dead. They simply called this cult “The Way”. …
God is Not Dead – Just Irrelevant: Addiction, Anxiety, & Agnosticism in America
I. An Addicted Nation I recently attended a Conference of the American Association of Safety Professionals in New Orleans, during which I sat in on a panel of distinguished lawyers, doctors, and policymakers on drug…
Of Cowboys and Freedom
Warrior County Jail 1999. One more DUI. One more incarceration. This had become my new normal. My very first DUI at eighteen years old I cried like a little girl. Now, it’s “Oh, well!” Here…
Boston Strong
“I wasn’t good in sports, so I ran. I wasn’t good at running, so I ran long!” Exactly one year ago I finished the Eugene Oregon Marathon in 3:46— first place in my division. I…
Prayer: The Language of Spiritual Desire
Two-hundred thousand years ago, a certain father got up from his fur-lined bed in a cave in Great Britain to relieve himself. As he stepped out from the cave, his eyes were drawn heavenward. He…
Reader Come Home: Book Review
Reading is an act of contemplation . . . an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction . . . it returns us to a reckoning with time. —David Ulin Rarely do I posit a book as a “must…
Remembering Our Silent Mentors
Crouching down on my knees on the floor of the large stainless-steel tank, I tugged at the yellowish rubber-like polymer on the sides, careful to avoid rubbing against the sharp blades of the large agitator in…
NOTICE: We are More Alike than Not
My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be, is what we are. Thomas…
What is it We Want When We Can’t Stop Wanting?
Over the years, I have discovered the life-changing power of routine. The little routines I establish tell the truth about what is important to me, about what I value in life, and set the trajectory…
New Poetry: Chapter Five
I have added a selection of my newest poetry. Click on the red link below and it will take you to a set of 12 new poems. For a sample, I have included “Super Moon” on…
Burned
NOTE: Caution—not for minors or for the squeamish… As a rule, we tend to move from one day to the next governed by routines we choose or are chosen for us, until the day comes…
The Only Truth I Know
“And so you see, I have come to doubt All that I once held as true I stand alone without beliefs The only truth I know is you” Paul Simon, Kathy’s Song …
The Mask of Zorro
I stood in the dark basement in front of the washing machine, guzzling an upturned bottle of Thunderbird wine I had stashed away for emergencies — when my wife walked in and flipped…
Writing as an Act of Hope
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all. Emily Dickinson I began this blog over two years ago,…
The Summit of Rainier
NOTE: I am re-posting this essay on the fourth anniversary of my climb. MT Rainier – Facts: Summit elevation: 14,410 feet, The most challenging endurance climb in the United States and the most imposing glaciated peak in…
Where Have all the Leaders Gone?
I am completely disheartened at the state of leadership today—at the world, national, state, and local levels. I can’t even read the news without consciously steeling my soul, nor watch it without holding fast to my…
The Life-Changing Power of Being Helpful
On the main lobby wall of St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma Washington is a large wooden mural depicting scenes from the life of St. Francis of Assisi—from his youthful search for personal glory–to his conversion…
Report from The Eugene Marathon
In a previous blog (What I learned training for a marathon ) I promised you a report on how The Eugene Marathon went. Here is my report: It is the morning after the Eugene Marathon. My feet are…
Christ Haunted
I recently came upon my 7th grade confirmation picture. I am standing in front of our fire-place in my family home in Fort Dodge, Iowa with my hands folded, looking out with a forced look of…
What I learned Training for a Marathon
Just after Christmas this year, looking down at my expanded waste, I made an impetuous decision – at sixty-five years old, I would train for the Eugene marathon in April. Until that decision I thought…
How the Practice of Self-Examine Can Set You Free
For the wise have always known that no one can make much of their life until self-searching has become a regular habit, until they are able to admit and accept what they find, and until…
One Song That Changed My Life
When you’re weary, feeling small When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all …Paul Simon Nothing is wasted in life if I am willing to hold onto and draw from each experience when…
Stability-The Spirituality of Staying Put
Stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything. – Sayings of the Desert Fathers It’s 4:30 in the morning, and I am sitting on the edge of my piano bench in…
New Years Greeting to My Readers
To you, my subscribers and readers of this blog, whom I consider my fellow travelers and friends– Greetings for this new year! I wanted to take some space on this blog to thank you so much…
New Poems – Chapter Four
A selection of my most recent poems – A Chance Encounter ( Selected for inclusion in the WA 129+ collection by WA Poet laureate and Gonzaga University) Chapbook A#3 WA 129+ poetry .“A trouble shared…
Christmas : Experience It Again For the First Time
I am thinking about this idea of Christmas. Is it really about a baby born over 2000 years ago during the shortest days and longest nights of the year–a time where a young maiden nine months…
“Tell Me I’m A Good Man”
In the summer of 1998 I sat alone in a dark movie theater. By this time, I was doing everything alone and in the dark—including drinking heavily. I never would have guessed, with all my…
Goodbye Hurts, Hello is Scary—Both are Necessary
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” – Dan Wilson, “Closing Time” A friend recently shared a picture of the two of us sitting together on the bleachers of our high school gymnasium…
The Practice of Living
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” T.S. Elliot – Four Quartets Its October—again.…
Help! I’m Trapped in the W.W.Web
“The Mind is it’s own place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, or Hell of Heaven” John Milton, Paradise Lost For some time I have felt an ambiguous restlessness and dissatisfaction following…
Stories I Tell My Kids
“Remember the days of old, Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, Your elders, and they will tell you.” Duet. 32:7 “Daddy, tell us a Story!” These were the…
Life-Long Learners: The Universe is My Classroom
We have two lives; the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Bernard Malamud If that is so, what have I learned about life, and living, and loving in these sixty-four…
“ROSEBUD”: Citizen Kane and Childhood Memory
“I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life”. These are the final words in the last scene of what is commonly considered the finest movie of all time –Orson Well’s “Citizen Kane”. (NOTE:…
Busted at My First Protest March
THE SET-UP The sweet and delectable decade of the 1950’s was over. The next one would become a runaway train, headed towards a cliff on the two rails of racism and war. The year 1967…
I Was a Pastry Chef Imposter
It is true—be careful what you ask for. But, ask away… In the winter of 1975 I had graduated from college with a degree in English, a wife, and two children, and was on my…
A Fathers Forgiveness: The Year I Ran From Home
I had to run away from home to come to know my father. Sure, I knew he was a hard worker, a good Catholic, and gave us everything we needed, and some of what we…
Moving from Loneliness to Solitude
If you have lived, then you have been alone. Then you know that deep, searing, soul-pain that is loneliness. Our lives are bookended with being alone; the very first long, lonely journey we take through our…
A Romance Redeemed
There’s way too many love songs / And I think they’ve got it all wrong Cause life is not the mountain tops / It’s the walking in between — Ben Rector The first time I…
If the Maple Tree Could Talk
Wisdom is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed. Prov. 3:18 They came and cut you down today. City leaders thought if they…
Who’s Helping Who? My Last Year with Dad
“We are all just walking each other home” Ram Doss Life is a long, continuous movement from one very ordinary and mundane moment to the next. I can either experience it as monotonous…
Finding Rest in a Tired America
“Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, that I would fly away and be at rest.” David, King of Israel I sense in the eyes and faces and voices I encounter…
How to Age Without Getting Old
“An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress” ― W.B. Yeats I…
The Next Voice You Hear
“This is God. I’ll be with you for the next few days.” In the 1950 movie “The Next Voice You Hear”, this is what people hear through the radio waves, at the same moment,…
Paterson Movie Review: Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
“The mere exercise of attention—eyes wide, ears pricked, heart open—is not a bad way to move through the world.” Mary Karr Paterson is a movie by a writer/poet, about a poet, for poets, artists, and…
Thoughts on Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” -When to stand, when to bend, and when to break
“How do you tell the story of Christian faith? The difficulty, the crisis, of believing? How do you describe the struggle? There have been many great twentieth-century novelists drawn to the subject – Graham Greene,…
The Middle Way
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton Some time ago I watched the documentary “Man on Wire”, which chronicles Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk…
Turning Work Into Play
Life has a curious habit of jumping up and surprising me—provided I keep my eyes, my ears, and my heart open and receptive. Over the Christmas holidays I spent hours playing with my grandkids, as…
To Connect or Not to Connect? – The 2017 Question
At first, it was a subtle itch far back in the throat. Soon, it was followed by a series of progressive symptoms; loss of appetite, alternating chills and sweats, body aches, coughing, congestion in head…
When Christmas Goes Dark
“It’s coming on Christmas / They’re cutting down trees / They’re putting up reindeer / And singing songs of joy and peace / I wish I had a river / I could skate away on”…
The Inner Life: Is it real, and does it matter?
I was a sophomore at the University of Alabama when I bought my first bible. It was a black leather- bound “King James”, and I had my full name imprinted in gold leaf on the…
Super Moon – A Poem
“We have seen His glory-the glory of the One and only, full of Grace and Truth” Jn. 1:14 Tonight the moon demands attention, now closer to us than ever. The gift comes twice a year…
The Man from La Mancha- Performance Review
This afternoon my wife and I attended a performance of “The Man From La Mancha” at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. The musical is based on the novel “Don Quixote“, by Miguel de Cervantes . This…
The Layperson’s Pocket Sermon
The other day during my morning meditation I came across this little verse; “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you…
What Will Be Your Legacy?
I. Life is short-Pay Attention! I am staring at a bar-chart of various colored bars that represent my financial outlook. As I follow the chart from left to right, I am jolted upright in my chair…
Things We Leave Behind
“It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind” Michael Card Packing The kitchen table is covered with camping gear. I pick up each item one by one and ask…
Bearing the Weight of Loss
“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” Aeschylus On a crisp, autumn…
Entering The World of Silence
“Silence is the perfectest herald of Joy” William Shakespeare “When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, sick of business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious,…
This Present Moment
“The present is what takes us into the center of ourselves, asking us ‘Where have you been all this time’ Sr. Joan Chittister “The Gift of Years” I am listening to an audio…
Learning to See
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder? Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision bright? Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame? VAN MORRISON “The…
Only A few Things are Necessary: Identifying your life’s practices
“And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, ‘This is important! And this is important! And this also is important. You need to worry about this, and this, and this.” And…
The Post-Modern Cry: “I’m Spiritual, not Religious.”
“The greatest problems of our time are not technological, for these we handle fairly well. They are not even political or economic, because the difficulties in these areas, glaring as they may be, are mostly…
Lord, Make Me A Channel
“To be free is to be totally available to others” Fr. Murray Bordo In previous blogs, we have considered what is it that brings ultimate purpose and meaning to our lives. This short piece reflects…
Purpose–Asking the Right Question
“Our prime purpose in life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them” Dalai Lama Can you remember the very first time someone asked you the ‘Ultimate Question’—…
Grace: When Not Enough Becomes Enough
“To be alive is to be broken, and to be broken is to be in need of grace” Brendan Manning, Ragamuffin Gospel Sometime during my childhood I acquired a belief that mistakes…
Go, Tell Your Story!
We all have them. I call them “gray cave” times. A time of loneliness, closed in by hard walls, damp air, and dim light. The gray cave of our painful seasons in life that come…
Joy: The Signpost to Your Path
“He will guide you in the path you have chosen” Psalm 25:12 Can you remember when you first thought about what you wanted to be when you grew up? I was four or five, and…
Fortitude: Start, and Don’t Stop!
It has always been perplexing to me why my natural tendency seems to lead me away from actions that will provide happiness and fulfillment, while moving towards that state seems like swimming upstream. I spent…
Living in the Age of Anxiety
“Ours is a time of anxiety, because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by some force from outside.” This seems like it could be a “tweet” or Facebook…