No Safe Distance

A Little Perspective

"Let us remember that our lives are but moments in the flow of eternity...And let us also remember that eternity is but a flow of lives like ours."

Paul Williams in Das Energi

Prayer of St. Francis as Sung by Sarah McLachlan

Story of You

Intrepid wanderer, endlessly searching for the story of you,
Oblivious to the scattered clues you’ve dropped behind,
We trail you through the forest,
Hungry field mice
Eagerly gathering the bread crumbs and
sprouted seeds of your existence,
storing them up for the winter.

And still you go hungry.

~Laura Young, 2005

Michael Schwass to Present MVP Award, Blackhawk Cup

PARALYZED HOCKEY PLAYER TO PRESENT BLACKHAWK CUP HIGH SCHOOL MVP AWARD AT CENTER ICE OF THE UNITED CENTER

Des Plaines, March 16, 2009 - Michael Schwass, MSW, will present the Blackhawk Cup Most Valuable Player award to the outstanding player in the final game of the Illinois High School Hockey State Tournament on March 16^th.To learn more about this event go to www.USAhockey.com

Schwass was captain of the 1976 State Champion Notre Dame team and is the author of “Don't Blame the Game.” The book details Schwass's tragedy to triumph inspirational life story from a hopeless quadriplegic to nationally acclaimed speaker and life coach consultant.

Lost Something in Translation

For the longest time I thought they were called the "Toronto Make-Believes". And I thought, well, they're French and they like mimes so it kind of made sense.

A friend, admitting she doesn't always hear everything correctly, commenting on the hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leaves

Sit Humbly Before Your Buddhas

This is a reprint of a chapter I did for 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 for SelfGrowth.com.

“They say you should write what you know,” she offers as we sit sorting one more in an endless stream of boxes filled with papers. “Right now, this is what you know. They say no man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child. This is kind of like that,” my mother leans from her wheelchair to toss one more handful into the “burn” pile.

 I had intended to write this chapter from the comfort of my home office, on my computer, with my cat on my lap, but while I was making those plans, life was happening, just like John Lennon said it would. So, instead I am writing on an old pad of paper, looking out over country fields two states away after a night disturbed by the frightened meows of a cat half feral after five months alone here. I am at my mother’s house five months after her stroke. She is just 64 years old.

Questo Muro

Quando mi vide star pur fermo e duro
turbato un poco disse: "Or vedi figlio:
tra Beatrice e te è questo muro."

(When he [Virgil] saw me standing there unmoving,
he was a bit disturbed and said, "Now look, son,
between Beatrice and you there is this wall.")
       -Dante, Purgatorio XXVII

Barrows, from interview on Speaking of Faith, public radio: “Dante has been in the depths of depression, the depths of the inferno and he’s now working his way out of it, towards Beatrice. You could call her the Soul or the anima. And he and Virgil are climbing the mountain and all of a sudden they get to a wall of fire and can’t go any further unless they go through it. It’s a poem about finding the courage to persist, to go through that fire…”

Perspective

Perspective kicks the tires on her
brand new Point of View
while Philosophy checks the oil.

Slamming the hood, he shakes his head,
“Hope you aren’t planning to go too far."

“I never plan on it. Sometimes it just turns out that way.”

He purses his lips, considering, as he yanks on the handle
of the driver’s side door,
thrusting his head inside to inspect the controls.

“Rear view mirror is cracked,” he gestures with a jab of his grease-stained finger.

“Standard feature. Objects in the mirror are never as they appear.”