Last year, in 2010, I tried my hand at cultivating a tomato plant. I’d been encouraged by the TV ads demonstrating the ease of growing and maintaining an upside-down plant.  The ads made it seem so simple.  Watching that commercial in which ordinary people reaped the harvest of the fruits of the humble and […]

Did you ever march in a peaceful protest or encourage your children to do so?   Did you ever watch our nation’s Capitol Building emerge through the mists of a foggy dawn as you joined a group that effected positive change upon our nation without ever firing a shot or aiming a blow?  Or did you […]

Once again, I find myself sitting on my canopied deck, which I have nicknamed Shangri-La.  Here I am, conversing with a replica of Saint Francis (okay, so it’s a one-way conversation).  I was telling Saint Francis  about God’s infinite wisdom, vis a vis the promise that we mortals will achieve everlasting life in the Kingdom […]

We all know someone who claims to have been born under a black cloud.  Bemoaning a universe out to get him, he yammers on about misfortunes great and small, including his aching back and the hair he was served along with his dinner.  What he fails to mention — indeed, what he fails to see […]

The media hype trailing the infamous court trial of Casey Anthony has left many of us almost as outraged as we were with the actual verdict.  Suspected of murdering her innocent two-year-old daughter, and judged by a jury of her peers, Ms. Anthony was awarded an acquittal. While we were indeed angered by this sentence, […]

Unique in the animal kingdom is the length of time required for maturity of the human animal.  Given the cognitive abilities of man, the process of development for a fully-functioning human being is not merely physical, but also intellectual, psychological, and social.  And, as society becomes ever more civilized and highly developed, the nurturing and […]

“And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face into the earth.” (1 Samuel 17:49) With those words, the Hebrew prophet Samuel created perhaps the earliest written account […]

During World War II, there was a cliché used by servicemen wishing to resolve problems or disputes.  That phrase was, “Tell it to the Chaplain.”  In other words, get it off your chest and then move on with your life.  As a result, the Chaplain became the confidential keeper of secrets who would, according to […]

Landing in London proper more than a few years ago, I got the cook’s tour, courtesy of my husband, who was on a business assignment there.  One of the stops was Speakers’ Corner, at an entrance to Hyde Park not far from where we were staying.  My husband explained that anyone — any man, woman, […]

“Only in America!”  How often have you uttered or overheard these words when yet another act of idiocy occurs in the process of governing our country?  Whatever blunders our legislators commit — including our incumbent administration’s desire to grant civil rights to enemy combatants — many of our issues stem from the attitude that the […]