Phillip Berry | Orient Yourself

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Ernest Hemingway “You have superpowers,” my wife said, smiling as our daughter reclined holding […]

Do you have photos on the walls and shelves in your home or has the quaint concept of printing and displaying them gone the way of phone booths, cassette tape decks, and old fashioned letter writing? In our home, photos are proudly displayed on our walls, on our shelves, and in memory books full of […]

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel. G. K. Chesterton When was the last time you considered your uniqueness? Consider for a moment that there are about 327 million people in the United States and there is only one you. There are […]

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. Charles Swindell What happens when our creative energies go “un” or “under” utilized? What are the dangers when we fail to deploy our full capacities into the world? What is at risk when we refuse to find or embrace our […]

THRASH/THraSH/verb: Struggle in a wild or desperate way to do something. Ex. “two months of thrashing around on my own have produced nothing” The day sits before you and you find that you don’t “feel like it.” So, you fill your time with activity that distracts, pretends, and ultimately skirts the one (or ten) thing(s) you […]

“I miss spending my days with Phillip.” Such was how my wife, Sally, described what she now missed most about her time on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. After over 500 miles of walking and nearly six weeks of 24/7 companionship, it was a profound affirmation of what we share. I couldn’t agree with […]

Today is December 29, 2019. Another day. Another year. The ending of our calendar year has always held a special magic for me. Though we still count hours, minutes, and seconds in the same way, there is something different about the end of the year. The convergence of days toward a tipping point into a new bucket of measurement

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot Life of Arrivals Our life is full of arrivals. Consider for a moment the completion of your last trip. Was it to visit family? Was […]

Two days ago, dear friends of mine lost their daughter to cancer. The twelve month battle was brutal as it battered them against the extremes of hope and despair. That part of the journey is now over but the battles are not. Now comes the struggle to go on in a world bereft of something […]

Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. John Milton, Paradise Lost The Struggle Here again. Dissatisfied and feeling down. Another job, another bad boss. The hopes of something new quickly fading amid the realities of expectations, workload, long hours, and the struggle to get ahead on too little […]