The relationship of Sifu is not an easy one to explain.  Within a kung fu school, sifu means teacher.  But a sifu is more than a teacher.  Sifu also means master.  And the diligent kung fu student accepts the sifu as his or her master, doing whatever is asked of him or her, as any good apprentice would.  But sifu also means father.  And in the traditional kung fu school, a sifu is just that.  When the teacher agrees to take someone on as a student, that student becomes as a child of the master, and the master becomes an adopted parent, a father, a sifu. My sifu, Richard Cunningham, satisfied...

You’re here once again reading one of these little gems about God and religion. Perhaps you’re interested to see if I’m going to say anything interesting or funny. Perhaps you want to know a little more about that ancient history, or about that Greek language, or about the beginnings of Christian traditions, or about what Jesus really had to say about things. Or perhaps there is something that just compels you to read them. Something has caused you to want to voyage on these seas, as it were. Who knows why we make the choices we do. But you have chosen to read this far, at least. You are...

The book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus taught me one important thing about the difference between men and women. When women complain about the things that are bothering them, they just want someone to listen. Men are looking for advice. So when men hear women complain, men think they want someone to offer them solutions to their problems. They don’t. They just want to vent. Men, on the other hand, want someone to fix things, or at least offer us a way to fix things. And that’s why we’re always offering women unwanted advice. Of course, this is by no means absolute. Yet it is still...

When I was young, I had a passing interest in our family tree. My mom used to tell us stories about our family, her side of the family, anyway. I used to listen to them. I enjoyed them. Who isn’t interested in their family? She would tell the stories, but I never made any real attempt to remember them. I mean, she was always there. Why remember them? But later on, when I got older, I wanted to tell those same stories to my wife and to my kids. I remembered some parts, but some parts of the stories I had forgotten. And I knew I wasn’t getting the whole thing right. So from time to time, when...

One of the things that used to drive me crazy as a kid was that my parents would make promises to me and then not keep them. Of course, as a kid, I didn’t really see or understand the challenges they faced. I can recall one occasion when I was about thirteen when we had a terrible rainstorm and there was significant damage to the roof of our mountain cabin up in Wrightwood and to the surrounding property. So my parents submitted a claim on their homeowners insurance policy and, since my father would be doing most of the repair work himself, they promised me that some of the money would come my...

Last night, I saw a really bad movie. It was made in 1934 and starred Gary Cooper and Marion Davies. Now I realize that this film was made a long time ago and the values of our society have changed; however, it had to be one of the most racist films I’ve ever seen, in a non-racist way. That is, the film was just filled with racial stereotypes. The film was about a woman, an actress, recruited by the north during the civil war, to spy on the confederates. It must have been a particularly difficult role for Marion Davies to play the part of an actress. She had no experience. In order...

What do you do when you start to have more stuff than house? You have a garage sale, that’s what you do. We had been considering having a garage sale ever since cleaning out the garage at the beginning of summer. I even contacted the city of Redondo Beach to inquire if we needed a permit to have one. Frankly, I had never heard of needing a permit for a garage sale, but there was a story in the local paper about a Gardena woman who was fined $200 for having a garage sale without a permit. She had only made $100 in the sale. I didn’t want that to happen to us. As it turns out, you...

I have never been to a renaissance fair…excuse me…faire. You have to end that word with the required final “e” so you can make it look like Old English, not that anybody spoke Old English during the renaissance. As a matter of fact, they spoke what is called Middle English, which simplified the case endings of nouns inherent in Old English, aka Anglo-Saxon, and Proto Modern English, as spoken by Shakespeare and as used in the King James Bible. But I digress. I have never been to a renaissance faire, and neither has anyone else. Those events, no matter what they call them, don’t really...

Just for the moment, let us believe that in 2012, Barrack Obama wins another term for the office of president of the United States . And then let us assume that in a few months, as every other president has done, he sets about to fill positions for his cabinet and also hands out appointments for the various jobs in government that the president has the power to give. After all, that is how presidents have always rewarded their supporters. So you go up to Obama and request a government appointment. And when he asks why you should have the appointment, you tell him because you supported him. And...

Have you ever been separated from your companion or companions when you’ve been in some big store or at some incredibly busy place where there are a multitude of people in the crowd?  That’s happened to me a number of times.  And you never know whether you should just stay in one place and wait until they find you or if you should go off looking for them.  And inevitably, when you find them, you both start saying that you were looking all over for each other and where the hell were you?  I even wrote a poem about the experience once. When one has lost someone Should you stay In one place And...