Crossing Nebraska

“It’s the thought that counts.” These words have a certain ring of truth to them, don’t they? On the other hand, a friend once related to me a story of how she put a lot of thought into choosing a gift for her daughter which, while perfect in every other way, happened also to be of a particular color that was rather abhorrent to the little girl. But it wasn’t just a dislike of a color. The real issue was that the little girl felt unheard.  She felt unknown – by her own mother nonetheless! Didn’t her mother know that she didn’t care for that color? I can relate, actually. As a young adult beginning to walk a path of vegetarianism, I was presented one Christmas with a beautiful leather jacket. It was quite expensive, too, which meant that accepting it with a smile and then never wearing it again seemed like a woefully inappropriate thing to do. And all the while we were having the discussion as to why I could not accept it, I just couldn’t help thinking of all the times meat h...

I first wrote this post almost seven years ago after having a social media conversation with a climate communicator friend. Even then, I'd long been frustrated with messaging that I perceived as shallow, incomplete, and ultimately ineffectual at stopping us from marching headlong into the climate crisis that is now fully underway. My friend had posted a video by the well known Bill Nye the Science Guy that fairly closely followed the talking points many climate change realists use when speaking about climate change: 1. It’s real. 2. It’s man-made. 3. We can do something about it. You can still check out the video here if you’re so inclined.  On one hand, it’s a great video – engaging, educational, and hopeful. On the other hand, with the exception of Nye's mention of the potential for gains in efficiency resulting from electrification, the take-home message is fairly one-dimensional – vote. Without any actionable suggestions as to how to address rampant consu...

A couple of months ago I once again hiked the trail that, earlier in the spring, had inspired me to compose that very ominous post: When Faith in the Earth Betrays Us . This time, though, it was an entirely different experience. The air was calm. The leaves were full, and various luscious shades of green. Sure enough, ample evidence remained of the circumstances that had prompted me to write that earlier post. Numerous fallen trees and limbs still blocked the trail. But there was also much more abundant evidence that life would not be subdued. Life, it seemed during this hike, was indomitable. In fact, life was so indomitable, it seemed that the entire forest was literally breathing as one. Yes, literally! It started softly at first, almost inaudibly. The rhythmic rising and falling of sound became just barely perceptible only to disappear again amongst the chatter of birds and the rustling of leaves. When it returned it was a little bit louder, and distinctly like the s...

Every once in a while I experience an apparent synchronicity of events that leaves me musing about the possible existence of some greater intelligence acting in our day to day lives. That such God-like intelligence might be tweaking events in our lives is a foregone conclusion for some. Others are inclined to pass off these occurrences as mere coincidence that the perceiving individual chooses to invest with whatever meaning might be appropriate to him or her. I’m fairly agnostic on the matter. However, regardless of how we might think they came to be, such interesting collections of events can serve to focus our attention on lessons that might be worthwhile to learn, or relearn, as the case may be. For instance, here’s a recent occurrence of “synchronicity” in my life: Event #1: I was heading home from work last Friday afternoon when I decided to make a detour for an early dinner. I made a right turn at a busy intersection and then quickly maneuvered into the left lane in order ...

Our outlook on climate change was so much more hopeful back in 2015. Obama was still President. Science-denying Trumpism was a distant specter. Pandemic was only hypothetical. And by December of that year the United Nations Climate Change Conference resulted in the Paris Accord – 196 countries agreeing to a landmark reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the increase in average global temperature to under 2 degrees Celsius. We’d dodged the proverbial bullet, or so we might have thought at the time. Sadly, we all know what the next six years wrought: Trumpism, our departure from the Paris Accord, pandemic, four of the hottest global average temperatures on record, and a steady uptick in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (now at around 415 ppm – well over the 350 ppm deemed to be “safe”). The good news, however, is that the Biden administration brought the U.S. back into the fold of Paris Accord signatory nations. And the silver lining of the pandemic was that we ...

“I don’t know,” I said, when it came time for me to speak, “I guess I feel like I’m kind of drifting – as if my practice is lacking in direction or something...” My gaze left Ginny’s face and refocused on the tree branches outside the window just behind where she was sitting with a small group of us. It was the third residential retreat that I’d done with her since the breakup of my marriage and she was probably in a better position than anybody else to know what I’d been going through. “Whenever I’ve been here in the past,” I continued, “I’ve felt so much more focused. Maybe it’s kind of like that tree out there. It used to be that I was like the roots – going deeper and deeper, pushing through the soil, making my way down to where the water is… But now I feel like that branch – just hanging there out in the open, not really doing anything…” My eyes refocused on Ginny’s. There was nothing more that I could say to describe what I was feeling. “It sounds like peace,” Ginny replie...

Perhaps you’ve heard of voluntary simplicity: choosing to live a simpler and more intentional life for the sake of greater personal fulfillment, richer community, and a healthier environment. The voluntary simplicity movement was bolstered immensely by the 1981 publication of Duane Elgin’s groundbreaking book of the same name. Unfortunately, we’re now more than forty years down the road, and human civilization is more complex than ever. It’s no longer hyperbole to speak of our being just one economic shock, one viral pandemic, one-degree Celsius increase in average temperature, or one war away from chaotic global disruption. Given that so many of the world’s problems are either directly or indirectly tied to an excessively complex and materialistic human lifestyle, why hasn’t the embrace of simplicity taken hold and become the prevailing aesthetic? Our problems would be nowhere near as intractable if we could just be content with a simpler version of all that is materially available ...

Each of us desires a life free of suffering. For some, this means accumulating enough money, power, and material things that they might never truly want for safety or comfort. For others, the desire for a life free of suffering entails following a prescribed religious path in order to attain grace and protection in this life and perhaps even paradise in the next. Desire seems especially prevalent in religion and spirituality these days—whether manifested as an insatiable thirst to be right about that which can never be known or in the need to be favored in the eyes of a creator. A more mainstream example of this is the barely veiled covetousness of the so-called Prosperity Gospel, wherein God purportedly shows approval by blessing the faithful with abundance. Consider also the many New Age sorts of spiritual practices related to wealth manifestation, bringing the energy of the universe in line with what we want, and revealing the “true self”—which is really just me after I get everyt...

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you’ve probably noticed my penchant for the word seamlessness with regards to ultimate reality. Seamlessness, to me, conveys a deeper reality than does interconnectedness . Whereas interconnectedness implies individual entities in relationships of mutuality, seamlessness conveys a reality beyond separation, beyond individuation, beyond compartmentalization. When I first moved into the neighborhood where I presently live, none of the backyards in the immediate vicinity were fenced; they all just kind of blended together into one big tree-filled expanse. It was beautiful. Over the years, though, as old houses got torn down and new ones were built and as people with young families and dogs moved in, more and more fences went up and less and less of that expansiveness remained. The seamlessness that had once been so readily apparent is now almost completely parceled up into little areas of separateness. This is precisely what our ordinary c...