At the end of each year (this was my 75th!), as I have done for the past 15 years, I have more or less kept faith with my spiritual practice of updating this site with my reflections on the principles we assigned to each of what we have come to call the Holly Days between … More Atonement, Forgiveness & Redemption
Today is courage. I’m a wimp. Always have been. I confess that my wishy washy lack of self confidence certainly leads me to be overly cautious and probably invites bullying. I’m an easy target, so maybe I need to muster my courage more often than the average guy. But courage, in this same context of … More Courage
Today is Love. I’m not sure why, but my belief in the power of Love verges on the mystical. Clearly, murdering a rival is a pretty sure path to a win. Violence, nature red in tooth and claw, rules the word of predator and prey. But unlike we humans, hate is rarely paired with violence … More Love
Truth, the 7th Holly Day is the first among my trinity of values that I use to guide my life. I can’t imagine how we can possible make any decent decision about anything without having as many accurate facts as possible facts. Our impression of the world is actually a post facto assembly from a … More Truth
Gratitude has become vogue in therapeutic parlance. Teamed with mindfulness it’s seen as a key path to mental health, and rightly so. So many thoughts can sabotage our spirits and drag us into darkness. Others, especially when the help us have perspective on our own minds and lives, lift us above that sea of turmoil. … More gratitude
We set Generosity on Christmas Day for obvious reasons. So many of us give more generous gifts on this day than any other. But cars with giant bows or mounds of carefully wrapped toys pale next to generosity of spirit. We should cut each other some slack, think the best rather than the worst of … More Generosity
I believe this end point of Holly Days, Redemption, is also the actual psychological endpoint of the archetypal hero’s journey, and I love well-motivated antagonist redemption arcs. Rey is finally old enough that I am able to introduce her to the joys of being a cineaste. We’ve seen a couple of beautiful animated movies together … More Redemption
Here on New Years Eve, the penultimate Holly Day we consider Forgiveness. I sleep less soundly at my age, and am often awakened by intense emotions elicited by a moment in a dream. Last night I was dreaming about helping some boys at a playground who were trying to hop onto a spinning merry go … More Forgiveness
This final trinity is kind of the key to universal peace — peace ranging from the closest one-on-one intimate relationships to global warfare, this ancient formula: atonement, forgiveness, redemption has almost always been the only escape. This year I have to address that tragic miasma of the war in the Holy Land. But first, an … More Atonement
Today is the end of the first trinity of our Holly Days. This one is about community: Unity, Compassion and Kindness. On Monday, a judge in Argentina granted Sandra, an Orangutan, non-human personhood. Hard to know what this will mean, not like she will be getting an apartment and a job in Buenos Aires, but … More Community – Unity, Compassion, Kindness
HOLLY DAYS 