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 […]
Category Archives: Spirit
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 […]
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 […]
Paschal Triduum
Prayers and Vitamins
Prayers are like vitamins and vitamins are like prayers. I vaguely remember taking One-A-Day vitamins as a child. You had to swallow them quickly and were in for a nasty surprise if you inadvertently bit into the small pill before you swallowed it. I clearly remember saying prayers every night as a child kneeling next […]
The Third Fall
There is no disgrace in failure. It is okay to fail, and it is good to recall your failures because when you do, you will remember the times you dropped to your knees and then found the strength and courage to stand back up. I believe that Jesus is the word incarnate. He lived for […]
If You Have a Father
If you have a father, if you have had a father, if you are a father… the list could go on. Without a doubt, you are on the list. If you are – which you are – you are obligated to watch “The Sparrow.” It is a mere 5 1/2 minutes. Nearly a two decades […]
Fortuitously Serendipitous
Fortuitous and serendipitous. Two of my favorite words. The one, happening by chance; the other, occurring by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Regardless of word choice, I am fortuitously and serendipitously lucky to be living in the home that found me and Mrs. tVM across the street from the Highland Manor Park when […]
Orangemen
There will always be a soft spot in my heart for Jim Boeheim and the Syracuse Men’s Basketball Team. Growing up in basketball-crazed Massachusetts during the Red Auerbach, Bill Russell and John Havlicek days of the Boston Celtics, I followed Jim Boeheim and Dave Bing during their playing years at Syracuse, and I returned to […]
Saints
“The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.” Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation