Author Archives: jimwdollar

We trust ourselves to the road that chooses us, and to the kindness of strangers we meet along the way. Those who know do it that way– by not having a way, but being open to the way that is the way for them, personally, individually, uniquely theirs and theirs alone, like their fingerprints andContinue reading “October 01, 2023 – A”

Transitions, alterations and transformations require adjustment, accommodation, and alteration all our life long. “That was then, this is now,” all along the way. Our adaptability is a function of our openness to change and our ability to see the possibility of adventure and growth tucked away in all things. We never out-grow additional growth. GrowingContinue reading “September 30, 2023 – A”

Why spend our time with people who cannot take “No” for an answer? Taking “No” for an answer is the primary ingredient in maturation. It is instrumental in “getting over it,” and nothing is more essential to our development than “getting over it” and “moving on.” People who cannot do those things are drains onContinue reading “September 29, 2023 – A”

What’s it going to take for us to settle in on meeting the day on the day’s terms and doing what we can about what is called for with the best we have to offer in each situation as it arises and letting that be that because we will do it all over again tomorrow?Continue reading “September 28, 2023 – A”

“The Peace of Wild Things” is a poem by Wendell Berry, which I recommend highly, but which is occasioned by wild things’ absence of anticipation and remembrance. The wild things that are hunted have less peace, I would think, than the wild things that do the hunting, but then, everything is hunted by something, andContinue reading “September 27, 2023 – A”

There are places that are sacred to us, beyond reason, question or doubt. Parker Palmer calls them “thin places.” Joseph Campbell would say they are “Transparent to transcendence.” The enliven us, and remind us that there is more to it all than meets the eye. there is an inexplicable, irrational, illogical side of physical existenceContinue reading “September 26, 2023 -A”

Dawns can be just this way if we give them a chance. I haven’t seen a dawn of any variety since well before we moved to Blakeney. Not that I haven’t been up before dawn. That happens nearly every day. But I don’t leave the house. I make coffee and sit down to write. I’mContinue reading “September 25, 2023 – A”

We cannot fix the system from within the system. All of the revolutions and near extinctions through the ages failed to change much (enough) of anything to change things. Like fascism did in the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War– it went underground, operating as the KKK and the White Citizens Council,Continue reading “September 24, 2023 – A”

Being moved by that which moves us is the common element uniting all living things. That which lives, lives as “the moved in response to the mover.” The mover–the moving “thing”– is the wonder/radiance of life itself. Life being moved by life, by the encounter with the reality of life, with the astonishment of beingContinue reading “September 23, 2023 – A”

There is the way things are, and the way things need to be, and the ways things are said ought to be. and the way we want things to be, If we can apprehend the way things are and live in service to the way things need to be, dismissing the way things are saidContinue reading “September 22, 2023 – A”

We do not see what we cannot articulate. Articulation is the hidden source of seeing. Taking up the work of saying what needs to be said is also the work of seeing what needs to be seen. The less we have to say, the less we are capable of seeing. Where photography is concerned, theContinue reading “September 21, 2023 – A”

The only thing between us and what has always been called “God” is sin. But not sin as action or state of being. It is sin as concept or idea. It is the belief in sin as a human condition that is the problem. Dump it immediately– and, POOF, like that, sin is gone, andContinue reading “September 20, 2023 – A”