Grace Notes

"What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?" “The average time for eating a Thanksgiving dinner is 12 minutes, which, incidentally, coincides with halftime.”  ~ Erma Bombeck Our country is one of the [...]

The mountains are calling and I must go.  ~ John Muir I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. ~ John Burroughs In a recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer (Doctors Prescribe Walks, 09/02/2024), a program new to the area calls for local doctors to write [...]

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.   —Will Durant If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.   —Colin Powell January 2024. This is the time of year when [...]

The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.          —Ralph W. Sockman It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so goes the popular holiday song. The Christmas season is upon us once again. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday have come and gone, and December 25th is just around the [...]

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. – Abraham Lincoln Life doesn’t come with a manual; it comes with a mother.  – Unknown Last month, I lost my first love. My 84-year-young mother passed away after suffering from a chronic progressive disease. For her last few years of [...]

Integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is watching.   — paraphrase of a quote attributed to Charles Marshall Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.                                       —Proverbs 28:6 The word integrity is not bandied about much these days, perhaps because we [...]

The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also. – Harriet Ann Jacobs Spring is proof that there is beauty in new beginnings. – Matshona Dhliwayo While spring may not be my favorite season of the year, it is certainly the one most welcomed after winter’s [...]

Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening – and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented. — Arnold Palmer Like many men my age, I picked up the game of golf as a result [...]

bib·li·o·phile: a person who collects or has a great love of books (see also bookworm, readaholic, bookaholic) Hi. My name is Bill, and I’m a bookaholic. There. I said it. I admit that I am addicted to books. I get my fix in reading a lot, my high in reading often. I feed my habit with biographies, [...]

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.  — Oscar Wilde A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. —Author Unknown Re·solve: to decide firmly on a course of action. Res·o·lute: to be admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering. Quit·ters Day: a [...]

"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,And pay a million priests to bring it.After two thousand years of massWe've got as far as poison-gas.          —Thomas Hardy, Christmas: 1924 “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” — William Shakespeare The Christmas season is known for [...]

A complaining tongue reveals an ungrateful heart. – William Arthur Ward Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. – William Arthur Ward Are you typically a grateful person? If so, you may be in rare company. In a recent post, Christian scholar Carl R. Trueman suggested that in our [...]

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations. ~  Benjamin Disraeli I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. ~ George Bernard Shaw If you’ve read my blogs, you know that I often include a quote or two that complements the post in some way. I’m [...]

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. — Anne Lamott We are born broken. We live mending. The grace of God is the glue.” —Eugene O’Neill When I started this blog three years ago, I [...]

You have to actually believe in your capacity to change for habits to permanently change. –  Charles Duhigg They say that old habits die hard. Case in point, our power recently shut down after a storm and naturally, my wife and I continued to flick on the light switches to illuminate a darkened room, thinking [...]

Before you get a dog, you can't quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can't imagine living any other way. – Caroline Knapp I’m writing this current post for my dog because for one, he doesn’t know how to type and secondly, because I’m his personal secretary. Having said that, he [...]

There’s a whole lot of people in trouble tonightFrom the disease of conceitWhole lot of people seeing double tonightFrom the disease of conceitGive you delusions of grandeurAnd an evil eyeGive you the idea thatYou’re too good to dieThen they bury you from your head to your feetFrom the disease of conceit    —Bob Dylan . . [...]

Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. —John C. Maxwell Our grandson, who recently turned the magical age of one, has finally decided to try walking out for size. A few months ago, he seemed so [...]

“You know most people live ninety percent in the past, seven percent in the present, and that only leaves them three percent for the future.”  ~ John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent Each period of life has its own purpose. This later one gives me the time to assimilate all the others. The task of this [...]

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.                                                  [...]

Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company. — Booker T. Washington It is inevitable if you enter into relations with people on a regular basis...that you will grow to be like them. Place an extinguished piece of coal next to a live one, and [...]

What I battle hardest to do in a tennis match is to quiet the voices in my head. ~ Rafael Nadal Stop me if you’ve already heard these . . . I wake up every day planning to be productive and then a voice in my head says, “Haha, good one!” and then we laugh [...]

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.    ~ Maya Angelou Let’s start with a serious question. When you die, how do you want to be remembered? For many of us, we want to be recalled as someone [...]

Sooner or later I’m going to die, but I’m not going to retire. – Margaret Mead I recently retired from paid employment (again), but this time I mean it. Although I could have continued working part-time, I decided that the precious years I have remaining could be better spent with family—namely a new grandson (let [...]

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?   T. S. Eliot (quoted in The Wisdom Pyramid) Many of us remember the food pyramid taught in health class back in the day. As a quick refresher, the food pyramid highlighted five different food groups that [...]

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.  - Blaise Pascal It has been said that we now live in a post-truth culture, one that is signified by appeals to our emotions and personal beliefs rather than objective facts. We probably see [...]

Our newly elected President has promised to unify our country, to bring together opposing parties and to help heal our nation of the division and rancor that has developed in recent years. Yet the responsibility of unifying a divided country does not lie solely on the shoulders of one man. It falls on all of [...]

Everyone has a book inside of them—but it doesn't do any good until you pry it out. —Jodi Picoult It’s been said that everyone has a book inside of them waiting to be written. If that’s the case, my book* seemed to be begging to be written. The fact that I did not initially or [...]

I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them, 1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy, 2. To speak no evil of the person they vote against, and, 3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted [...]

“Hello, this is Dr. ____. I’m calling in regard to your lab results. Your troponin levels came back as positive. You need to get to an ER as soon as you can.” Thus ended my Saturday afternoon, with my wife taking me directly to the emergency room (but not before cancelling our dinner reservation to [...]

I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people. —Rosa Parks       I recently read a brief biography of Rosa Parks—one of the most recognized civil rights activists in American history. Sometimes referred to as the “first lady of civil rights,” Parks [...]

Breaking the Cycle of Incivility ci·vil·i·ty: formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech. in·ci·vil·i·ty: rude or unsociable speech or behavior. The rule of civility in our country has apparently gone searching for a new home. Politeness and respect are virtually missing from our social exchanges be it in public debate, social media, or barstool [...]

Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?  Ralph: That about sums it up for me.                                                                                     —From the movie Groundhog Day Here in Ohio, we’re beginning week six of the governor’s order to shelter in place due [...]

An Easter to Remember If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he [...]

Faith in the Time of Coronavirus When you gonna wake up strengthen the things that remain. – Bob Dylan from Slow Train Coming There’s no question that the current pandemic has caused all of us to step back, take a breath, and recalibrate. Our world as we know it has been tilted a bit on [...]