Last week my car blew it’s head gasket. I was to blame, and the expensive lesson keeps teaching me.

When I’d added antifreeze two weeks earlier, I should have bled the cooling system line, which I did not know to do. I’d learned auto mechanics on an old slant six Plymouth Valiant that I could take apart and put back together again with relative ease. These new engines are too complex for me.

Because I did not bleed the antifreeze line, according to my mechanic, an air bubble caused the temperature sensor to fail, which caused the fan to fail, which caused the engine to overheat, which caused the head gasket to blow, which caused antifreeze to enter the oil system, which then ruined the aluminum engine. Consequently, I now must replace that engine.

Well, I do not happen to have an extra $2,000 laying about this month, so I’ve begun an active search for more income, such as finding new clients. I was not prepared for the absurdity waiting “out there.” Read the rest of this entry »

WITHIN the past few weeks, my life has experienced a total turnaround.

In early January, I headed off to New York City for a book reading and signing at Vox Pop bookstore in Brooklyn, performing with New York’s top political comedian, Scott Blakeman. This was the best-attended reading I’ve done so far.

Curiously, at the bookstore’s suggestion, I set up my signing table display near the front door. I did not post a notice with the selling price. My goof. When I came back to the table after the reading, more than a dozen books were gone. One person quipped, “Theft is the sincerest form of flattery.” Must be my lucky day, I told myself.

After a few days in the city, including an amazing Sunday with men from the ManKind Project, I took the train down to Philadelphia. Philly is my kind of town.

To commemorate the 231st anniversary for the January 10 publication of Common Sense by Thomas Paine, I’d organized a press event at The Library Company of Philadelphia (founded by Ben Franklin on 1731). Joining me were the head librarian, James Green; the director of the Thomas Paine National Historical Association, Brian McCartin; the nation’s top Ben Franklin re-enactor, Ralph Archbold; and talented Thomas Paine re-enactor and peace activist, Steve Gulick. I spoke on what Paine would write if he was alive today.

C-SPAN’s Book TV sent a crew to record the event. They cablecast the program three times on the last weekend of January. My publicist, Penny Sansevieri, told me, “This could be really important for your book.” Must be my lucky day, I told myself.

Read the rest of this entry »

THIS year featured a rare convergence of Rosh Hashonah, the beginning of Ramadan and the Vernal Equinox on the same day of the new moon. Whether you are Jewish, Moslem, Wiccan, or any other spiritual persuasion, this was a day for introspection and life changes.

I personally felt a profound sense of rebirth from celebrating the start of the new year (5767) with the Nevei Kodesh Jewish Renewal community in Boulder, Colorado.

Unlike the staid and generally boring rote recitations of the High Holy Days worship services from my youth in a Reform congregation, the services this weekend led by Rabbi Tizrah Firestone with assistance by Rabbi Zalman Schachter filled the sanctuary with joyful song and deep prayer. I truly felt my connection to Spirit.

As the services began, I felt tears well up inside from the power of the music and feeling of being in a community of kindred souls, who like me have explored many different spiritual paths, eastern and western.

During the evening and day of services, I made that wondrous, powerful journey of 18 inches that every man must make from his head to his heart. My biggest take-away from the services this year was a renewal of my commitment to inner peace.

In recent months, I’ve been so fixated on the many details of launching my book, Global Sense, that I’ve not sustained the daily personal growth practice at the root of everything I say in the book, especially the idea that world peace starts with inner peace. I’ve not been walking my talk. I’ve not been feeling the peace that passes all understanding, the source of the abiding faith that empowers my hope for humanity.

So, in this new year, I’m humbly owning that my life is a work in progress. I’m owning that I still have much to learn and far to grow. I’m owning that all of the turbulence, urgency and worry in my life springs from the illusion of scarcity. I’m accepting the reality that there really is more than enough abundance and love in the universe to meet all of my needs (and your needs, too, for that matter).

I now affirm that I am one with the Source of Life. And from this global sense of being connected with the whole world, I breathe a sigh of sublime surrender. Here and now, in this day and hour of new beginnings, I breathe peace.

Tomorrow, I begin the process of renewal all over again.

Shalom. Salaam. Peace.