I can still remember that first time I bowed to the Buddha… such a simple act, and yet perhaps the most defiant and difficult thing I have ever done. I have not lived the life of a saint. I’ve been a rebel from as far back as I can remember—fired from every job, court-martialed in…
“There is a Wine that flows from the vineyards of the Lord, Its sweetness aged in jars of clay, its price none can afford.And wise men say that he who tastes its sweetness on his tongueWill understand the Mind of God and evil overcome.” With tear-filled eyes, a dying father passed these words on to…
What if the most dangerous belief we hold… is that we still have time? I don’t think there are many who haven’t already reached the same conclusion, even if we try to deny it—that as a species, through our actions and our silence, we have crossed a line from which there may be no return,…
He comes and goes as he pleases, working quietly behind the scenes. Most times we’re not even aware of his presence — not until he’s ready to steal another from us. The children may grow restless, or the dogs bark more than usual in the night… but we choose to ignore such signs. To acknowledge…
In 2001 Wat Ou Poat was selected to be the Pagoda where we would build an HIV and AIDS clinic. It wasn’t my first, second, or even third choice of locations at the time, because The Khmer Rouge had destroyed much of it and some of the stupas, supposedly had even been used as holding…
In 2001, just as The Wat Opot Project was opening its HIV and AIDS clinic in Bati, Takeo, a young monk from the Wat Ou Poat Pagoda came over to observe the activities. He was more than just curious, he was interested in helping us out with the children’s program. As the program developed and…
Before there was time I existed, in a dimension far different than now. My whole world was self-sustaining, to no one I needed to bow. But a question arose from somewhere inside, ‘How different would my world be, If I didn’t know all the answers and the future were up to me?’ In a burst…
The Bible teaches us that whatever we ask for in prayer, if we believe, it will be given to us. I have tested this teaching at times in my life and can honestly say that sometimes it seems to work… but at other times it doesn’t. One might conclude, therefore, that the results are determined…
Have you ever had a chance encounter with just the right person, at just the right moment in time, or perhaps you made a wrong turn in your journey, but it ended up bringing you right to the place you needed to be? Coincidence or preordained… I tend to believe the latter. I had just…
To believe in a Creator God is to believe that mankind is of little significance within the Universe… an imperfect creation of a perfect Creator with no purpose other than to worship that Creator, while enduring the pain and suffering caused by the imperfections he has woven into our being… hoping that one day we…
I haven’t thought about self-fulfilling prophecies for some time now, even though I have had my suspicions that many of the major experiences in my life could have come about because I thought about them beforehand. A good example of this would be my Vietnam experience. Before I enlisted in the Navy back in 1966,…
It is not so much that I mind what people want to believe in, but I do sometimes get frustrated when they are unwilling to discuss why they believe what they do. I remember a time, a few years back, having a discussion with the then Director of Mission to Unreached Peoples. I had crossed…
Many years ago, I worked as a counselor at a youth center in the southwestern part of the United States. Most of my clients were of Native American or Hispanic ethnicity and were referred to me by the police. Occasionally, however, I would be asked by the local schools to see students from other ethnic…
ME: “Well, Claude, between the two of us, there is little doubt who is smarter. What has taken a lifetime for me to write, you can write in seconds. What do I, as a writer of human experience, have to look forward to when you could write a novel in just a few minutes?” CLAUDE…
I would not classify myself as a coward and have, at times in my life, acted bravely in the face of danger. Most men, and increasingly more women, wonder—as did I in my youth—how they would respond when under the fire of enemy guns. It is an age-old question that cannot be answered until you…
