Excerpts from Song of Myself There is that in me–I do no know what it is–but I know it is in me. …I do not know it–it is without name–it is a word unsaid, It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. …Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death–it is form, union, plan–it is eternal life–it is Happiness. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,…

Be ready to live. Like buds on a rosebush in late November in the Chicago Botanic Garden. Be ready to die. Like the flower on the same rosebush in late November in the Chicago Botanic Garden. Because to be ready to live and to be ready to die is to actually live in and savor the moment. It is to be in tune with one’s surroundings. To be present to the present, with no regrets and no fantasies of a perfect future holding us back. Our Advent hope calls us to action in the present. Carpé diem. It’s the only…

Make beauty. I know, many of us grew up believing that making beauty was the sole province of only a very few, innately talented people called “artists.” What a sad deception. Since Adam was invited to name the animals, humans have made beauty. We do it by drawing on cave walls and painting with oil on canvas and sculpting, of course. But sometimes we do it by seeing it–even in the mundane–and calling it into existence. I love to photograph construction sites, like the one above in downtown Chicago. A construction site offers a million configurations of form and color,…

Yes, I’m a teacher. And proud to be and think teaching matters and changes the world. But do not allow the concept of formal teaching to detract from the larger meaning of the word. We all teach. All the time. Someone is always watching. But that’s only half the equation. The kind of teacher you are depends on the kind of learner you are. Teaching divorced from learning is mere propaganda in the classroom and obliviousness–a barren obliviousness–in everyday life. Let the sparrow teach you whose eye beholds you.