Last month was a tough month. The events of Boston, Massachusetts and West, Texas brought tragedy front and center in our world once again.

The news of the Boston bombings was everywhere you looked. Many were exposed to the devastation that struck the community of West. We are in a world these days in which the more sensational or shocking the news is, the more tragic the event is perceived. It could be Boston or West or Newtown or Columbine or Oklahoma City. You don't have to go overseas to find examples. Just look in our own backyard.

Throughout that fateful week, the overwhelming thought wasn't one of making sense of the evil, the pain, or the suffering. My mind kept coming back to our responses to the tragedies among us.

Read more...

Some twenty-odd years ago, I stood outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, reflecting on the tragic events of April 4, 1968. I have looked out over the National Mall and Reflecting Pool from the Lincoln Memorial, imagining what it must have looked like on August 28, 1963. Fifty-two years later, his words still have the power to bring me to tears.

Today, we remember and honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and his fight for civil rights and for freedom.

Many of us think of “civil rights” in terms of equality. But it is so much more than that for all of us, regardless of race or gender. In Texas, we hear a lot about property rights and the right to bear arms. But perhaps more importantly are those unalienable rights, those rights that we all share and the foundation upon which we all live, as noted in the Declaration of Independence.

Have you considered your health as one of those civil rights?

Read more...

Rush arrived at the Frank Erwin Center on Tuesday night for the start of their latest tour, just 5 days after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  What ended up as a phenomenal 2.5 hour performance started with a song from 1982 called "Subdivisions". It immediately took me back to a place many years ago: January, 1984.

I will admit, those were difficult times, struggling as many do with trying to find your place in the world. While my friends gravitated towards the hollow mind candy of Top 40 hits, I found myself immersed in musicians like Jimi Hendrix and, yes, Rush. I saw the world a little differently than most of my friends, and it certainly wasn't without it's share of friction.

Meanwhile, there was this class called "Canadian literature" that I had to survive. Little did I know that it would change my world and forever alter the course of my life.

Read more...

Welcome to 2015. Once again we find ourselves on January 1, the start of a new year, with a blank slate in front of us. It's that arbitrary date when you sit down and formulate plans for the year ahead and resolve to make any number of changes in your world.

With any luck, these resolutions won't fall by the wayside by week's end.

New Year's Day can also be a time for a ton of platitudes. We talk a big talk when the New Year arrives.

You'll undoubtedly throw lots of big ideas out there today, plenty of big hairy audacious goals for the upcoming year. Great resolutions lie ahead. But are you truly ready to make 2015 remarkable?

Read more...