(Continued from last week …) An angel is an invisible presence that must be acknowledged to become ever stronger. God sends angels to keep watch over human beings and help them in every human challenge. There is, however, the element of free will in humans. You can acknowledge the presence of angels or deny it….

(Continued from last week…) Trust your own instincts. Your own personal experience will color the lens with which you view and relate with your personal guardian angel. God so loved the world, He sent His only son to redeem us from sin and death so we may gain eternal life.  Angels are sent to help…

(Second of 4 Parts) (Continued from last week …) The belief in the presence and power of angels to intervene is strong in popular conservative culture. In a remarkable 1999 Hallmark film, “A Season for Miracles,” an angel plays a pivotal role in helping a loving aunt to two children whose incarcerated, drug addicted mother…

(First of 4 Parts) DO you believe in angels? I do. Most people do. The strong presence of angels in the various books of the Bible, especially during the birth of Jesus Christ attests to the role of angels in human history. The feast of the most famous Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, is celebrated…

A lighthouse is a standing sentinel on high ground, a guide to navigation for those out on the open sea heading in to port. As a very young girl, I learned that from my father, a ship captain in the merchant marine industry for decades. When the seas are rough and huge waves are tossing…

(2 of 2 parts) (Continued from last week’s issue …) Daedalus took off flapping his wings faster and faster to get vertical lift-off and escape gravity. Icarus followed suit and took off shortly after. As they flew, the people on the ground in Crete watched in amazement wondering whether the winged creatures are the gods…

(1st of 2 parts) LONG ago in the island of Crete, there lived a man named Daedalus, who was famed for his skills as an inventor. He worked for King Minos. Foremost among his many achievements was building the labyrinth in which the king kept the Minotaur, a fearsome, legendary beast which was half-man and…

ONE man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Just for a little fun, go garage “sale-ing.” There aren’t as many in the summer season as there are in spring. Many old-timers have to deal with their stuff gathered over the years, a lot of which have long ago outlived their usefulness.  For practical purposes, many just…

A farmer in Africa heard glowing stories of other farmers who have become rich by discovering diamond mines in the continent. Filled with excitement and visions of sparkling diamonds, he sold his farm quickly and set out to become a diamond prospector himself.  He wandered far and wide for many years crisscrossing the huge continent…

NOW is a good time to ponder about the end. It is a grim thought, I admit, but it seems appropriate when taking stock of the year about to be filed away in some cosmic memory bank. Long ago when my daughter was a young girl and while driving one day on the freeway headed…

YEAR after year without fail at around this time, December days and nights seem to slip from our grasp like fine grains of sand.  The hours seem to hurtle through the day as we complete a year’s cycle and move on to the next. Many of us try in earnest to mesh the unusually heavy…

JOSHUA was excited with his new job at the inn.  It sure beats having to herd sheep this time of the year when the cold nights chilled his bones on the hillside pasture where he tended his family’s small herd of sheep and cattle. The job fell to his younger brother this time. Jacob, the…

(Excerpted  from the conclusion of a 3-part article) … There is news of suicide that hits you harder because you personally know the person who took his own life. By all accounts, he has led a good life but unknown to all, was going through overwhelming personal struggles, quietly wallowing in darkness and despair never…

Part 2 of 2 (Continued from last week’s issue…) Let’s do a reality check. So okay, your partner is the consummate slob and you have to pick up after him. He thinks he has a maid living with him for free. He has this maddening habit of not putting the toothpaste cap back on. That’s…

Part 1 of 2 MANY years ago, on a visit to my father’s grave site on a quiet, lush, manicured patch of Forest Lawn Glendale, my husband, daughter and I trudged along several bronze memorial tablets of husbands and wives who lived in the 1850’s and died just before the mid-1900’s buried side by side….

(Continued from last week …) Half a lifetime later and half a world away, I have forgotten much about the murdered American soldier. Buried in the mists of time, his story would have remained shelved, tucked away in my memory banks and promptly forgotten until I came across an account of that incident long ago…

JUST for kicks during my halcyon days as a full-time working /full-time grad student at the University of the Philippines long ago, I had agreed to act as medium for a séance or a hypnotic session to conjure or call the spirit or spirits that were causing a disturbance. I took over from another medium…

TRAVEL is a pure metaphor for our life’s journey. There are two choices in the way we can travel. We can travel light or we can load up on stuff and literally become a beast of burden. The reality for most of us is that we heft and carry far too much physical and emotional…

WE live in the Age of Information. You could say it is both a blessing and a curse to live during what could very well be “the best of times, the worst of times” as Dickens would probably describe it, to have so much information available at our fingertips. We have terabytes of available information…

WHAT is your greatest fear? Some say that for most men, the greatest of fears are the fear of death, fear of failure and fear of public speaking. I know of someone who is deathly afraid of dogs, completely convinced that dogs are out to bite her. Telling her that her fear is baseless only…

YOU have become a collector over the years. Memories, good and bad, you have them, by the bucketful, stacked in yellowing photographs in frayed and tattered albums. You used to dutifully collect them, way back when printed photos were the norm. But now you have them in your phones, in your computers, in USB drives…

(Conclusion 1 of 2 parts) (Continued from last week …) You hope that a smattering of beautiful memories, yours as well as of those you leave behind, are indelibly marked in a few hearts and minds for a generation or two — strong enough to move them to bring you flowers on your gravesite long…

(1st of 2 parts) What’s your game plan when you retire? The timing can be one of 3 ways: you yourself planned when it will happen; the government said it’s time you did; or circumstances beyond your control, like the onset of illness, finally put you out to pasture. Or are you one of those…

CARE to dance? Most people have rhythm embedded in their DNA. Music moves them emotionally and physically. Music is a powerful gravity-defying force that can speak to the soul. Watch when people listen to an upbeat Michael Jackson tune or even a Strauss waltz piece and before long, they will transform any empty space into…

While appearances may deceive, more often than not, what you are is reflected on the outside. Becoming your own style icon does not mean maxing out your credit cards just to follow the latest fashion trends.  Don’t do it. It’s a fool’s errand. You can never get caught up with it anyway. Fashion, like technology,…

I am suspending my idea series for a Bucket To-Do List for the time being to share a story told to me by Sister Anna. A little back story… Anna Cinco was a classmate in high school who graduated way up the rungs and copped a college degree majoring in Mathematics. She taught at the…

[Select a handful of those things in your bucket list that have the highest chance of coming to fruition given your time frame. In tech speak, it means before your life’s energy goes into ‘ low batt mode’ and life has run out of sockets to plug into.] The default setting for modern life is…

[Select a handful of those things in your bucket list that have the highest chance of coming to fruition given your time frame. In tech speak, it means before your life’s energy goes into ‘ low batt mode’ and life has run out of sockets to plug into.] Things break. Once broken, a thing loses…

[Select a handful of those things in your bucket list that have the highest chance of coming to fruition given your time frame. In tech speak, it means before your life’s energy goes into ‘ low batt mode’ and life has run out of sockets to plug into.] Life is, indeed, “a moveable feast” to…