Stewardship -the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving Everywhere I hear and see finger pointing about who is responsible for this problem or that problem – global warming, the economy, loss of the moral compass, hunger, poverty. You name it, everyone is looking for someone or something to blame. As I...

“Without friends, no one would choose to live even though he had all other goods.” – Aristotle 2-10 You’ve Got A Friend This week our topic in Channeling Aristotle was friendship. Aristotle was emphatic about the importance of friendship in leading a good life. Aristotle says that the essence of a virtuous friendship is selflessness. I had...

Last week my husband and I had the pleasure of spending the day with some retired friends who spend about 50% of their time living in a small cabin on the South Platte River in the foothills of Douglas County, Colorado. It was an exquisite crisp fall day. We met up with them mid-morning and took a tour of their tiny 2 bedroom cabin. I think it is probably...

I am currently taking a DU Enrichment Class “Channeling Aristotle: Cultivating a Virtuous Life in the 21st Century”. Our discussion last week evolved around the “golden mean” and finding purpose in life. Aristotle believe that happiness lay in the pursuit of one’s full potential and in maintaining a perfect balance between excess and...

I am the 1. The 1% that is to say. At least I was in 2007. I was surprised to learn that in 2007 the IRS reported 391,000 Americans with income exceeding $1 Million. I was one of them. I am not greedy, self-interested, dishonest or villainous. For a long time I was ashamed to admit it because I had some unsavory stereotypes of what people “with...

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending my daughter’s high school choir concert. I was really moved by a number of the songs. After the concert I thought a lot about how the arts in our schools are losing funding even though they are so very critical to the development of our children. Before you stop reading thinking this a rant about education...

I came across this TED presentation which I found very thought provoking. If you don’t have time to listen to the entire 19 minutes, just listen for the first 3-5 minutes. In this presentation conductor, Charles Hazelwood, talks about trust as a key ingredient to the success of making music. I am in the habit of connecting seemingly unrelated things. This...

After our lazy morning on the porch and a late breakfast, we loaded two canoes and two kayaks on the truck. We headed out down the dusty, winding gravel road upstream for a little outing on the river. We parked at a State Park – $2 – and drove down to the lot by the river. There was a building near the river called the Shot Tower. This is an old Civil War...

We arrived in Raleigh late yesterday afternoon and drove a couple of hours North to the Blue Ridge Mountains along the New River to our friends cabin. In an instant I was taken back to my Southern youth. The sounds, sights and smells of the South are unmistakeable. Sitting on the porch in the evening the moisture starts to build as the sun drops down below the...

As I was listening to an interview on NPR today I was really struck by one of the statements made by Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Short, Moneyball and now Boomerang – The Meltdown Tour. In discussing the potential default in Greece and in municipalities across America he said, “People want to have things they don’t want to pay...