It’s been that kind of week (since last post)…

I’ve discovered the single identifying mark that delineates you as “old.” Unfortunately, it isn’t a new phenomena for me; its actually been noticeable, at least by me, for a couple of years. Since I’d never seen it before, on me, I wasn’t able to readily identify it. It was only through living with it over [...]

Scenes that seem randomly filmed can sometimes tell a story that would otherwise be incapable of being expressed with words. My son-in-law recorded what may appear as just a series of disjointed images during Christmas at my parents’ home in Chadbourn, NC in December 2010. Watching the video, the story plays out for me because [...]

Riding down the street today, two young gentlemen approximately 50 yards in front of me stepped out into the road. It was obvious that they were oblivious to the fact that a car was coming. I blew the horn to get their attention. They continued to ever so slowly mosey across the street, only tossing a [...]

On Friday morning I woke in Curitiba, Brazil. I attended class in the morning, caught a flight in the afternoon and was in Rio de Janeiro by four in the afternoon. I caught another flight that night and landed in Atlanta ten hours and 5,000 miles later. After catching yet another flight on Saturday morning, [...]

There is a very distinctive smell that I associate with Brazil. Garlic. Way back in the early 80′s when I first moved to Brazil, I didn’t know what cooking garlic smelled like. Every morning I’d wake up and smell this smell that was unlike any that my memory banks could categorize. It took me months [...]

i went to a restaurant here in Brazil over the weekend that had what they called a “traditional Brazilian coffee.” A traditional Brazil afternoon coffee would serve as a full meal in anyone’s book. I remember being invited over for “afternoon coffee” at an acquaintance’s home back in the 80′s while living in Brazil. The [...]

One of the characteristics of the training I’m participating in here in Brazil is it’s communal living environment. We are forced to live in a community, sharing resources and space. The experience is designed to help us be better counselors, to be more attuned to the needs, and quirks, of others, especially strangers we come [...]

I’m in south Brazil in a training class for spiritual counseling and inner healing. Though I have quite a bit of experience working in the cross-cultural setting of Brazil, there are still times where I’m caught off-guard. This morning was a good example. The fellow in front of me in the breakfast line gets a [...]

There are days when I wonder if I should have gotten out of bed. I get a phone call that went something like this: Caller: Doc, can you help heartburn? Me: Typically there is a lot you can do. Caller: Ok! What do you recommend? Me: I need more information about what is going on. [...]