I was teaching a history lesson yesterday to a bunch of ten year olds.  The lesson involved then President Andrew Jackson and the Cheyenne Indians.  For those of you who have forgotten your American history, here is a thumbnail version of what happened. The American government, as usual, wanted to …ahem…”acquire” the native Americans’ land.  Now we had a treaty with the Cheyenne that said they got to keep their land.  But now we wanted the land, so Jackson told them to vacate.  Instead of killing us, which is probably what the Indians should have done, they decided to play by our...

Paris would have to be my favorite city in the entire world. There are a lot of reasons for this. There’s the food of course, and the atmosphere. There are the small street cafes and the wonderful little neighborhoods, each with its own charm. There are the fabulous museums. And of course, there are the people. Paris was tailor made for a people watcher like me. But most of all, there is the architecture. Everywhere you look there are these amazing buildings. It almost doesn’t seem fair that so many wonderful buildings could all be in one city. I marvel at the Pantheon and the Le Opera. The...

I remember very clearly the first time I ever encountered a trick question. It was in the seventh grade. My history teacher was Mr. Byrd. I couldn’t stand him, really. He was an ultra conservative and often let us know his political opinions. I was, of course, a radical liberal (it being the 60s, but then I’m still pretty radical when you come to think of it). But being a thirteen-year-old, I couldn’t say anything because he was my teacher. So I had to sit there and listen to his right-wing claptrap and keep my mount shut. It was good training for the day I would have stupid bosses. Anyway,...

Back in 1980, I went back to college. Like a lot of folks, I went to college right after high school, took a bunch of classes, dropped a lot more, and then dropped out of school for a time. I had been offered a good job at more money than my father made, so I took it. But in 1980, after being asked to leave my home, and having been injured at work and fired, I decided I needed to acquire some new skills, so I went back to school. There was another reason I went back to school. I was trying to make time with a girl I had gone to high school with and reconnected with at the telephone store. Yes,...

At least once a year, one of the boys in my class gets in a fight with another boy. And when I set about to solve the problem, I usually ask the boys what happened. One boy accuses the other of hitting him, and so, fool that I am, ask the kid, “So, did you hit him?” And the young man will almost always answer that he did not. Then, usually, a chorus of voices from the class announces that the boy in question did, in fact, hit the other child. They saw it. And then the boy who at first denied hitting at all offers, “He hit me first!” And then I usually say something glib like, “Oh, I see....

There’s an old Japanese legend about a man who dies and finds himself in the afterlife. I wonder what the Japanese idea of the afterlife would be? Would Godzilla (Gojira, in Japanese) be there? Do gigantic prehistoric lizards have souls? It’s a mystery, my son. Anyway, I digress. This fellow finds himself in the afterlife and is being show around by his spiritual guide. There were beautiful estates and lush gardens all around. Finally, he comes to a room lined with shelves. And on the shelves were stacks and stacks of ears. The man asks what’s with all the ears, and his guide tells him that...

Okay, I know this isn’t Sunday, but I had some more thoughts about the reading from the Gospel According to Matthew from a couple weeks ago and I wanted to pass them on. So in order to refresh your memory regarding the issue, let me very briefly paraphrase the story so you know what I’m talking about. Jesus was speaking to some people and teaching in parable. A parable is basically an analogy. It is a story designed to teach an abstract concept that can’t really be understood intellectually. In fact, the parables of Jesus are very much like the koans that Zen masters use to teach their students....

So this guy who owns a small winery goes out at the break of day in his pickup truck to find some day laborers. He goes over to Home Depot and picks up a few guys and takes them back to his vineyards. He offers them a fair wage, fifty dollars for the day, (if you can call less than minimum wage fair) and puts them to work picking grapes. By nine AM, however, he sees he’s going to need more guys. “Damn Mexicans!” he thinks, and gets in the truck and heads on out again in search of more workers. He finds some guys, says he’ll pay them a fair wage, and brings them back to the vineyards and...

I have a lucky elephant I want you all to know His name is Jim and I’m with him Wherever he may go He does not like the subway And he won’t fit in my car And Jim’s afraid of airplanes So we never travel far And when the police see us They say, “Take him to the zoo!” But Jim prefers to feed the ducks For something fun to do I met Jim on a Sunday And ever since that day He sticks with me like a shadow And he never goes away I ask him many questions Whenever I get stuck He always has an answer And he’s always brought me luck Whenever I get in a fix Jim has a tale...

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven. –Thomas Fuller There is a story about a young boy that had never said a single word.  You know, most kids start talking when they are little babies and then they never shut up.  But this kid never talked at all.  When he was a toddler, the mother took the boy to the doctor to find out what was wrong with him.  The doctor examined the boy thoroughly, but could find nothing wrong with the child.  Eventually, the parents just accepted the sad truth that the boy would never...