I have come to define faith this way: Faith is the knowledge that something exists or something is true without proof, or that an event will occur in the absence of reason and logic. There is great strength in faith. It is one of the core messages in my 2012 novella The Sixth Day, and […]
Category Archives: Awe and Wonder
Do Not Be Afraid
“The Lord is my shepherd… though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff give me strength, comfort, and courage… “ If Leonard Cohen is right – and I believe he is – this is the secret chord […]
Faith Amid Doubt… Lincoln Still Smiles
The American landscape has changed drastically since I played chip-up baseball with Johnny Senger, Ray “Ping” Connors, the Filio brothers, and a handful of other future big-leaguers from nearby neighborhoods on the vacant lot behind the swamp next to our house on West Housatonic Street. Kids don’t do that anymore. America has been far from […]
The Nameless Giver
I have worked in the homeless community in Tucson ever since I met my friends Carl and Chuck in 2012 in the book store at the Redemptorist Renewal Center in Picture Rocks, Arizona. Homeless himself for a while, Carl is the Director of the St. Francis Shelter in Tucson where Chuck is a board member […]
Four Truths
Ten years ago, I completed and published my second novel, The Hamsa. The Hamsa is about human dignity, the fact that every child is born with human dignity, that it has NOTHING to do with race, religion or status in life, that NO ONE can take our human dignity from us. We can give it […]
How Good People Can Be
Every time someone shows me how bad people can be, someone steps up to show me how good people can be. Years ago, a friend recommended to Mrs. tVM and me the PBS series Call the Midwife. I have been around since the dawn of TV. I remember Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob Smith. I […]
Meet Me in OZ
I love America. I love the freedoms bestowed upon me as an American citizen, freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and its 27 Amendments. As much as I love America, that is how much I dislike the selfish way too many Americans interpret our freedoms such that they consider themselves entitled and refuse to be considerate […]
Lessons from Grackle
We have many birds in our neighborhood and one of the most popular is the Great-tailed Grackle. Like all birds, they rise exactly 30 minutes prior to sunrise, and I hear them throughout the day and see them on the adobe walls in my backyard. Last week, Mrs. tVM saw a nest in our neighbor’s […]
Making Lincoln Smile
I find it less easy to be critical of young people since my return to the desert. The kids in my neighborhood – a healthy mix from varied cultural backgrounds – are energetic, openly friendly and polite, and seem to spend less time fixed to video screens than I have become accustomed to. Early in […]
About Dogs, God and Politics
In my quirky novella with its even quirkier title The Sixth Day, a 17,175-Page Novella About Creation and Prizefighting, I suggested that God should have quit creating after he made his perfect creation, the dog. I feel more strongly about it today in an America where partisan politics strangle the common man and attempt to […]