Partly Broken.com

  One of the challenges of detoxing one’s system from chemical agents, which is what I am doing this week, (I have not had a drink of coffee or an alcoholic beverage in four days), is how to deal with the empty spaces that suddenly appear when one is no longer preparing for, or indulging oneself in, the consumption of these things. No more coffee refills several times a day and no more glasses of wine or cans of beer before going to bed. I just want to feel what life was like before these things became so important and seemingly necessary to me. So far, so good. No headaches, no physiological disturbance that I’ve noticed. These addictions were only emotional, rather than chemical. Of course, the emotional addiction that I struggle with the most- my incessant drive to have the attention and praise of others, is much more difficult to disengage from. How do I even measure progress in this? One can count the cups of coffee or the alcoholic beverages, but how do I count the...

  Men don’t like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Step Twelve, The Twelve Step Program In the second to last meeting of the course “Social and Cultural Foundations”, Dr. Butler told us, not once but twice, because some in the class didn’t understand what she said the first time, that “It is not necessary or possible to learn about other cultural groups in the abstract.” It was a concept worth repeating, I believe, because it was exactly this attempt to categorize and somehow “own” knowledge about other cultural groups that most of us in the class had hoped to gain from it. Instead of having a better handle on minority groups, for example, we have learned about the inadequacies of all stere...

  View the music video: https://youtu.be/oVQEtwe9lX4 The soundscape finds us on a busy street where the song of birds competes with honking car horns and idling truck engines. The children at a nearby bus stop chatter among themselves as they enter the familiar yellow vehicle, some scraping their feet on the floor of the bus before taking their seats. It is just another day in a life of education and socialization for this generation. You can hear and feel the curiosity and sense of belonging in the young voices. Nothing special here unless we take the view that all of it is special and important – just as each child and each family member and every relationship is special and important in the grand scheme of things. Gun shots are suddenly fired in the middle of this world, which could easily be the Cincinnati neighborhood of Evanston where two drive-by shootings happened this past week. 39-year-old Yarsellay Sammie Sr. and 16-year-old Javeir Randolph were shot on the...

The hollow ringing in my ears reminds me of the crickets of summers long passed away. The quiet moments now, though never complete, offer me their strength. In a realm of inner riches, love is always flowing and growing - within and without. And all shall be well, even in this shell full of crickets, there is quiet. * *Photo courtesy of Carole Barnhart.  The poem, on one level, is about my tinnitus.  On another, it is about life. Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by  following us »  

Quotes: Love in action     is a harsh and dreadful thing          compared to love in dreams. Dostoevsky If you see it another way, God will clarify the difficulty for you.   It is important that we continue on our course,  no matter what stage we have reached. A Letter of Paul to the Philipeans 3:15-16 A hole was secretly dug in the back of the family yard.  Into it, a pair of ugly brown plastic glasses were dropped and hurriedly covered over with dirt before anyone could see it.  When questioned the next day, "Where are your glasses?" I could easily lie and say "I don't know.  Maybe they're lost somewhere."  The over-riding concern of those pre-adolescent days was "How will I look?" and "Will I be accepted?"  One would rather be accepted than anything, even if it meant blurring the only vision one had. One would rather be accepted than anything,  even if it meant blurring the only vision one had!!🙈 T...

  Descriptions of my first published book.  ALWAYS PARTLY BROKEN Is he broken, or merely breaking into something new again? Many of us fall in love more than once in our brief lives. Sometimes a former love object, which we thought was safely put to rest, comes alive in us again. Soon, we're wrestling with different versions of ourselves. Raymond Geers, the former Brother Adam, has never been a consistently cautious person. He is a convert back to "normalcy" after his youthful years of reckless, but always earnest, experiments in spiritual-seeking. Now a settled householder and mid-life daydreamer, he cannot seem to forget that he once tried to be a real mystic in a world-famous, monastery. Ghosts of the past haunt his sleep, so much so that he eventually gives himself permission to re-examine the wonder and sense of failure leading to the hard break with his former self. Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by  following us »