Moats. Now we kayak them. But they were built for one thing: keeping the threat out. (Ross Castle, Ireland, 2022) Stationed in Germany, I was part of a running group called the Hash House Harriers. It’s an international social running club where a "hare" lays chalk trails through the countryside and the rest of us chase them down. There are silly traditions, songs, and no roadways allowed. Discovery was a key point. In Germany, that meant forested hills, hidden trails, and ar

A Kosovo traffic jam. And gratitude. I was escorting a National Geographic film crew for a day. I’m not sure if this scene made the final cut, but the crew was as uplifted by our reception as were we. I was checking on some soldiers who were manning a checkpoint at JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center) in Fort Polk, LA. We were there to do our final pre-deployment validation before we deployed to Kosovo the following month. The soldiers had been preparing for this deployment

Not quite 100%. One of the few times reaching that makes a big difference. (Almost total solar eclipse, August 2017, Boise, ID.) I was a Yearling (sophomore) at West Point, standing in an engineering class while my professor reviewed problems we had written on the whiteboards. West Point used something called the Thayer Method: you got the content ahead of class, studied it independently, and arrived with a basic understanding. It was self-directed learning, building problem-

Late this spring, I was meditating in my bedroom when one of my kids busted open the door to get something. I gently opened my eyes as she saw me, said "oh," and told me what she was there to borrow. I told her where it was, she rummaged through my closet, shuffled out and closed the door. My brain treated it like any other interruption: I noted it, acknowledged it, let it go, and returned my attention to my breath. Not for a million dollars could anyone have convinced me sev

Here I am Sunday, playing the "keys" and singing to keep my nerves down. (Photo courtesy of my friend Raleigh who sat right up front to support me!) Early this year, I got a wild idea: join the church music team. Excited, I reached out to the team leader and he sent me the online application, which I quickly filled in and marked "no" to the question about experience playing with chord charts. I grew up playing piano (please overlook with me that it had been 35 years since I r