Someone said, “Joy is in us, waiting to hitch a ride on the first train to go by.” If that is true, Denton must be a very joyful place! From my apartment, at all times of the day and night, I love hearing the distant horn of the passing Union Pacific train.  It’s far enough…

“re•gret (r-grt) 1. (Verb) To remember with a sense of sadness: Her son, a soldier, always said it is better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do. And there were nights when she would regret in the form of a list—regret not uttering I love you enough, regret not having been able…

I was watching a movie recently and two of the characters were having a disagreement.  They argued back and forth, and then one of them said, “Look me in the eyes and say that!” The other person refused at first, but the command was repeated with emphasis: “Look me straight in the eyes!” Finally, the…

“When a caterpillar enters its chrysalis, it dissolves itself, quite literally, into liquid. In this state, what was a caterpillar and will be a butterfly is neither one nor the other, it’s a sort of living soup. Within this living soup are the imaginal cells that will catalyze its transformation into winged maturity. May the…

A six-year old once confided to me, “I’m afraid of the dark.”   I was intrigued by the non sequitur, but humbled by the trusting confession.   “So am I,” I said, “I think everyone is.”   “No, I’m really afraid of the dark,” he repeated.  Hmm, I thought.   “Well, I live in the woods where the lights…

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew” These words have followed me through my life.  I was taught from an early age that it was important to finish the things that I started.  It was a sign of bad planning or laziness to give up too soon.  But over the years I started questioning…

Rev. A.J. Galazen, Interim Minister Years ago, I was a member of a church in a diverse, inner city neighborhood.  The location was one of the reasons I had joined.  One evening, I attended a meeting of a committee looking to attract new people to the church.  We had a lively discussion, and there was…

My father worked as an industrial engineer for a toy company, and he also designed and manufactured toys in his own business, so I was always surrounded by new games and toys. For a short time, I worked on the assembly line producing a toy called “Perfection,” which was a kind of hand-eye coordination puzzle…