Good Clean Reads

“We can teach from our experience, but we cannot teach experience.” -Sasha Azevedo

Lately I am learning how to not be a barometer for my children’s experience. I am unwinding the long-growing tentacles that have connected their experience to my own. Instead, I am looking for the teachable moments where I can be helpful, where my own experience can offer something useful. I am looking for the...

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. ” -Martin Luther King, Jr

Rarely is the idea of creating a peaceful world described as an action verb- with all the same understanding and intensity that we employ in waging war. The idea of peace has this almost fairy tale feel, like it is something that would just descend on us or that...

"I like hugs and I like kisses, but what I really love is help with the dishes!" ~Author UnknownFor years the most significant and unresolved conflict that lived between my husband and I had to do with the division of labor in our home. In fact, this is one of the top mechanisms of dissatisfaction and ultimate destruction of many long-term partnerships. For most couples, establishing a balance to working...

“The purpose of life is not to be happy – but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.”  ~Leo Rosten

The Axeman pageant was sold out last night; I think for the first time ever. It was the pageant that many people thought couldn’t possibly go on after the loss of two of its star players who were washed into the sea. This is the tragedy...

“He that jokes, confesses.”  -Italian Proverb

Indiscretion is no longer discreet. Gone are the days of clandestine meetings, sideways glances across an office or illicit gestures in a dark parking lot. Now you can get those same thrills and more in your email box for only a $49 joining fee. It seems too ridiculous to be true, but this is point we’ve reached- a multi-million dollar cash cow of a...

“One may go a long way after one is tired.”  ~French Proverb

My measures of success are changing as I am more deeply anchored to positivity. On some days, just the bold and courageous act of showing up again is enough. You can’t quite see how it will all work, but you have enough faith in yourself and the world to wait it out. Even as you make the attempts to solve problems that won’t budge or...

“Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it.  Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealousy, and envy.  Guard your fragile life carefully.  Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.”   -Og Mandino

I am struck by just how fragile and tenuous our life is again this week. My son, who seems...

“The greatest mistake of penetration is not to have fallen short, but to have gone too far.” -Francois de la Rochefoucald

In recent years anal sex seems to have come out of the closet with more people, both gay and straight. More and more people are asking questions and admitting to having tried and liked it than ever before. This of course begs the question, are more people talking about anal sex...

“Bodhicitta is like yeast that never looses potency. Anytime we add the moisture of warmth and compassion it will automatically expand. If we keep it in the freezer however, nothing happens.” -Pema Chodron

I try to think of the word and mind place of the Bodhichitta when things break down in me. They are the moments when our capacity to care or love is compromised by some old broken part of...