The Best Is At The Bottom
The best way to get to the top is to begin at the bottom, and stay there. Anyone who has ever reached the top of their game will tell you that it was the set of values they began with that got them there. So, staying at the bottom means that you never move away […]
Toward An Authentic Education
No quote has arrested my attention more in the past four years than this one from Parker J. Palmer. “Authentic teaching and learning requires a live encounter with the unexpected, an element of suspense and surprise, an evocation of that which we did not know until it happened.“ In the course of four decades as […]
Influence of a Forward-Looking Teacher
In the Fall of 1977, I received the American Farmer Degree at the annual Future Farmers of America Convention. That would have never happened if one forward-looking teacher hadn’t sent his best student representatives to my junior high school to recruit me in 1972. Mr. John Silvia, my high school Agriculture Science teacher, influenced a […]
Restorative Time
The joy I have of being an #entrepreneur is having the freedom of #time . The time to think. The time to explore. The time to be silent. The time to create. Time is not all about doing. About being busy. It’s not all about production. Or about maximizing efficiencies. Time has to be #restorative as well. This final quarter of […]
Oxford On My Mind
I returned from Oxford a few weeks ago. I was invited to join a friend of mine who was returning to Kellogg College for his reunion, an event they call a Gaudy Night. It was an invigorating visit to be among 36 college campuses that make up one Oxford University, which is unquestionably one of […]
Artists And Heavenly Delights
Thank you to all the storytellers, poets and singers. Your performance art moves us in ways that the daily staccato of dull public language can’t. Tolkien’s lush tales. Amanda Gorman’s poetic honey. U2’s hymns to something grander. The daily news kills the spirit, yet art carries us to heaven where we can enjoy popcorn, cotton […]
Points of Surprise
As the world’s glittery glamour begins to dim, Smaller points of light are seen. Not gleams of neon pixels shamelessly dancing before our eyes, But beams so pure and pretty, They catch us by surprise.
That Haunting Urge
The entry point for any person to become a writer is unique to every person. Some enter in their youth. Their stories splash on white pages like the work of an amateur watercolorist. Others later in life, compelled by a haunting urge, sitting alone with what seems like an arthritic hand, must drag their pen […]
Let’s Create A World Of Good!
It’s a slogan that helps me keep moving forward in the midst of countless setbacks. Whatever good we create is always at risk. It’s not hard to see this. History is loaded with one catastrophe after another. At the same time, it’s filled with some of the most glorious acts of kindness and good that […]
Of Hibernations and Hugs, and Other Whatnots
Inspired by A.A. Milne Written by Bryan Prosser Pooh stood stoutly before a Great Oak Tree and read a simple sign that said, “Time To Fall Back!” So he did. And he laid there for an Entire Winter, it seemed. And it was. He snored, and he dreamed, and he shivered, and he tossed to […]