Excerpts: Someone once said, "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." The war in Iraq has also been God's way of teaching George W. Bush complexity. He came into office a black-and-white kinda guy, and now finally "gets" that things aren't always as simple and straightforward as he thought they were. He's not unintelligent, but he does have a lot to learn....One Bush conviction is that democracy is a good thing. Which is a hard one for him, since he's not sure what democracy means, and his most trusted advisors, allies and supporters care far less about democracy than about power, money and control.... So while President Bush is pretty busy these days trying to figure out what real democracy might look like in Iraq, his cronies, meanwhile, are busy committing hari-kari over their formerly malleable President's newly uncontrollable idealism and apparent abandonment of their precious dreams of gold and empire....   more »

Excerpt: I once concluded, sometime during my college years, that I was fundamentally alone in the world. Despite "friends" and "family," I made up my mind philosophically and spiritually speaking that I was basically on my own, up against a demanding and challenging and chaotic world, with no plausible higher power who could possibly have any interest in me....   more »

You'll have to shout louder;/I don't want to know./Experts and eggheady wonks,/Will you go?/I really can't hear you./I'm waiting to sup./I don't care to listen./My mind is made up./I long ago tuned out/All facts that don't fit./Your smartypants theories/Don't matter a whit./You'll have to yell louder./Sorry, I'm noddin'./I'm just not impressed./Enter, bin Laden.... (I wrote this a year ago and forgot about it. Too bad it's still just as relevant today....)   more »

Now help me get this straight: It's not legal to commit terrorist acts or to assassinate important people, but it's OK for someone important to say we should. It's not legal to "murder" a single human being, but its OK to launch a multi-billion dollar pre-emptive war that randomly kills and maims and ruins the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings....   more »

Excerpt: What I didn't want was to feel guilty so much of the time, to feel like I could never do enough. And I especially didn't want to feel that I needed to keep all my relationships "even," or to fulfill any given individual's expectations, in order to fend off hurt and loss.   more »

Excerpt: Good solutions never come from me anyway, but sometimes they come through me, from my endless Source of solutions. Whenever I give a problem to my higher power to bless, he always works magic, and sometimes he chooses to do it through me....   more »

Excerpt: What I know is, before I began asking my higher power for help, my life did not work, and now it does..... What I know is, whenever I ask to be an instrument of his love and healing, power and achievement--far beyond my small abilities--flow through me, and I am able to help myself and others....   more »

Excerpt: I'm giving up on sacrifice. I'm finally seeing all sacrifice as manipulative, as an attack on others, as selfish, harmful, and unkind.   more »

Excerpt: Whenever I had fear thoughts (a lot of the time), no matter what I was doing (sleeping, working, playing, loving, whatever) I would immediately start to time-share--i.e., I would ponder and analyze them while continuing to do the interesting present stuff. And of course, I would soon no longer be focusing on whatever process I was doing in the present moment, but instead would be replaying all those fear thoughts (whether big or little doubts, angers, resentments, put-downs, mistakes, guilts, whatever.) I would work them and work them over in my mind, poke them and prod them and examine them and project them every which way I could, rehearsing a self-righteously indignant and defensive range of responses and explanations and attacks.   more »