for peace and prosperity, abundant blessings, transformation, joyful and active participation in creative service to the world at large.

I write. I've done virtually anything and everything else (from all the skilled trades to human services management) that an ordinary guy can do except emergency medical treatment. But if push comes to blood, I could suture, splint, or perform an effectual version of  last rites. I was a Boy Scout and prepared for an adventurous life. Mostly it's been preparation.

Howsomever, after the usual trials,  I sailed a fast little sloop across Lake Erie to the Erie Canal, on through to New York City,  and down along the Atlantic Coast into Isle of Hope, Georgia. The big idea was to sail away to the South Pacific. But… I anchored just south of Savannah for nine years where I developed all the skills of an armchair-sailor. And I started writing in earnest. Freelancing, news-features, photo journalism, and correspondence work began providing a modicum of success along with the varying day jobs. I often lived aboard my boat: the 29' 8” DuFour, Arpege, a beamy racer-cruiser with ribbon-stripe mahogany and fine joinery below decks.  The Arpege ghosts admirably in light airs; it's simply amazing in heavy weather and in modest survival sailing. 

For the 1996 Olympic Games, at the Yachting Olympic Village, I was the Information and Communications Coordinator,  starting the job months prior to the arrival of the world's Olympic sailors. Internationally, media groups are far more interested in sailing than in the U.S., especially the brilliantly produced NZTV, the French, Spanish and the aggressive Japanese news crews.

Although I was appointed to editor of the editorial page of my high school newspaper, there were other more profound influences early on in my life. Some were good.

I started growing up on the east side of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. When I was 12 we moved out to the country. A year later I had a friend at the “Find-A-Way Farm” only half-a-mile from my house on Caves Road, a tarred dirt road. My friend lent me his book on Tibetan Buddhism which I read twice. Growing up really began about  zen. Lucky me.

During my high school daze, I joined a church youth group.  We volunteered to help in the inner city and we attended other churches and temples variously instead of going to our own Sunday school class; that was the class. One Sunday  we were asked to write and perform an entire service in the grand First Unitarian Church of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Our sermon to be was about what it is—to really be—alive. We were and         we did.   

It's good to remember how just it was in the being of alive, and better yet to remember to be alive—right now.  I trust someone will run such a sermon by me when I need to hear it. I hope it helps to uplift my spirits—to be hauled aloft and sent flying like boat sails—full and pulling.