Author Archives: John Swinburn

The line was crossed yesterday. It should have happened before. Regardless of when it happened, or should have happened, here is the upshot: I am no longer willing to accept that I have a disagreement with people who support ready … Continue reading →

A man can wrap his emotions in a steel blanket inside a stone cave of his own making, but if he does he will lose a part of himself he can’t recover. I’m only now beginning to realize the ability to emote … Continue reading →

There’s never an inappropriate expression of real love. There’s never a reason to be embarrassed to love someone. Yes, we’ve created artificial boundaries that keep us from being “in love” with people we love, or at least expressing our love … Continue reading →

The only means for us to end racism and bigotry is to engage in honest and thoughtful conversations, one-on-one, with people unlike us. No question arising out of honest curiosity should be off-limits, but if one party finds a question … Continue reading →

A few days ago, I watched the sky change from thick to thin and go back again. That’s how I perceive the presence and absence of clouds; the sky skips between corpulent and consumptive.

This morning, for reasons beyond my ability to comprehend, I am thinking about the decomposed granite we bought to fill the spaces between the flagstones of our patio in Dallas. The flagstones were hard sandstone, the sort of stuff that … Continue reading →

Tears are lubricants. They enable emotions to flow freely, expressing emotions the way they were meant to be, tumbling unimpeded from the mind into an unsuspecting world.

The desire to document one’s philosophies of life is not arrogance, in my view, though my perspective may be a creature of personal protective armor. Rather, it is the expression of a hunger to be understood. It reflects a person’s wish to collect his attitudes on life in capsule … Continue reading →

Late afternoon shadows seem gentler, softer than the hard lines of dark figures against bright reflected light of the harsh morning sun. Late-day filtered light makes dim images, tired old relatives to the brash young impressions made by their morning brethren … Continue reading →

Pretend everything will be fine. Believe it. Behave as if it were true. And maybe it will be true. Whether everything will be fine or not, surely it will…be. That’s the way it is.

The weight of the world is not on your shoulders; instead, it is on the shoulders of an abandoned child, seeking food and water sufficient to enable her search for sustenance to go on again tomorrow.