It was a windy Sunday morning on North 8th street. The weather was beaming in beauty. Spring was well under way outside. Troy’s hospital bed was situated such that he could see out the windows in the back bedroom onto the backyard.…

We go through life, most of us perhaps, content with the familiarity of habit and opinion. What can break us out of this? Who would want something truly fresh, even uncomfortable?

One does not have to physically travel to taste something foreign, new, perhaps even acerbic.…

My recent sojourn in Peru and Bolivia has left me with much to ponder within my conscious centers.  One of the most intriguing experiences in the Peruvian Altiplano was the unique differentiation of the atmospheres.   Spending the better part of the journey to Peru and Bolivia at or above 11,000 feet resulted in the condition known as hypoxia, which involves the low pressure in high altitudes resulting in difficulty in oxygen moving through our vascular system. …

Look about and see,
  they are all gathering and coming to you.
As I live, says the Lord,
  you shall be arrayed with them all, as with adornments,
  like a bride you shall fasten them on you.
Though you were waste and desolate,
  a land of ruins,
Now you shall be too small for your inhabitants,
  while those who swallowed you up will be far away.…

“In each of these crises, can be rediscovered to a certain degree the primitive image of all emergencies, namely birth. In that primitive experience, the whole organism had to readapt itself completely to save itself from immediate death. The lungs opened with a cry of distress.…