Our world changed... and perhaps with it, so all of us has too. I hope for a world where the differences we have with one another do not encourage the harm and threat of those we deem to be different. I am just storyteller and simply offer this story of a long time ago that took place on an island that looked like a turkey.

During the days when I was privileged to see the world through the eyes of my youth, I remember knowing that my friends were both Democrats and Republicans, they were Baptists and Catholics and even an atheist, if my memory is true. I knew some were liberal and others conservative, but those terms seemed secondary and only served as descriptors to our diversity and not impediments to our friendship.

I miss that island! I loved that place for all the things it allowed me to become back then. My love for that island is not the kind that would compel me to give up my future travels just to go back for one more visit. In fact, it was my time on that island with my friends in the Turkey Island Gang that taught me to take risks and walk down lots of other paths to other uncertain possibilities, even if I often had to mow those paths myself. I will always love that island for the way it pushed me to explore other places!

I owe a lot to my grandfather for the person I have become. When I was young, I saw him as nothing short of a superhero with amazing powers to make his and other's lives better. What I did not then, but learned later, is that he really was a hero who saved the lives of millions during World War II. He and so many of that generation fought against evil in this world unleashed by Adolph Hitler. He was one of those soldiers who first came upon the concentration camp at Dachau. The interesting thing is that my grandfather chose never to speak of his time during war, I share it here, in part, because he and so many others deserve to known as hero's. We need more of them in our world.

Its interesting how our childhood experiences can live underneath our adult lives. Sometimes the effects are positive while other times these memories cause us to fear and mistrust ourselves and others. Even worse, most of the time, human beings are completely unaware of the way these events impact our adult life. As a therapist, my wife often helps me understand how our "Childhood Self" can manifest in our reactions to others and situations. This can occur through our fears, anxiety, need to protect, shame and even perhaps in my mother's case, the need to move the living room furniture every week. My mother never had the resources to visit a counselor to explore these manifestations in her life, instead she just had a son who loved to tell stories to make some meaning out of those moments. If you have a few "Secret Messages" showing up in your life, please seek out a counselor to help you decipher these message into something positive.

A short story about a father, my father, passing on the wisdom to live life in such a way that we do not let our souls become too old. Stories of death and dying are not easy shared or really common between a father and son but my father was anything common. I am thankful for his words to me or at least the way the words landed on this storytellers heart.

My grandmother was one of my greatest faith mentors partly because she had seen the worst of what church could be and still managed to believe in God. Her life was harsh and difficult for a woman who chose to divorce her abusive husband in the 1940s and though she found very little grace and love from the church, she live a life in which she both gave and received joyful redemption to and from others. This story includes a few details surround my uncle Ronnie who struggled to find happiness in this world but in the end at least found some healing at the end of his life through my grandmother, his mother. This story is one I often tell from many directions, for many different audiences while making sure the truth of the story never changes.... However, this particular telling is closer to the real, raw and difficult details of why my grandmother taught me how to always find a way to give grace and accept for yourself as well. Some wounds that we experience in our childhood can never be fully healed but if my grandmother was even a little correct, its still worth trying to find a new story.

This episode is a series of 3 stories that take place during my first year at Culver-Stockton College. As human beings, we experience a lot of pressure to remain in the familiar worlds in which we grow up. Sometimes those forces come from within and other times we experience extreme pushback from those in the new worlds we try to enter. As human beings, we tend to respond in two possible ways, 1. with laughter and acceptance and friendship or 2. with fear and hatred and anger. These three stories attempt to capture my first real experience of being the first in my family to be accepted to four-year college. So much of what I learned that first year in college about how people act when we encounter someone or something different then the person we are or the culture we come from, compels me to listen and learn from my new neighbors.

This story is about a the first moment I learned the power of saying hello and goodbye to another person. This universal human experience occurs over and over in our lives between friends, parents/children and potential life mates. Her name was Elizabeth and she was my first real love and the person whom I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my life. In the end we needed to say goodbye but I am forever thankful the ways she made my life better in this world.

Through a series of conversations about death and dying my college roommate taught me some of the best lessons of life. His name was Greg and he was just one of those people who seemed to know that his time on this earth was limited and getting the most out of it as quickly as one could was important. We talked about our faith and what we thought might happen after it was over BUT mostly we just had some of the most soul giving conversations as friends. WARNING: This story obviously deals with grief and the struggle to understand the deep and often painful whys of suffering in this world. You may cry or relive some of your own difficult and disorienting moments. Listen with caution but my hope is this story of my conversations with Greg are more about the hope that can happen between friends when being OK in this world is not always possible.