We want people around us who accept us as we are. We choose to not spend time with people who point out our frailties, inconsistencies, sins, bigotry, unfairness, insensitivities, and prejudice, or who push our buttons in real time. So we unfriend and avoid those who do not feed our worldview, beliefs, biases, and bigotry. We end up creating a wall of friends to reinforce and support our prejudice.

We humans love our ignorance. Our ignorance allows us to have lazy brains that relish the patterns we learned in childhood. We are adults now, responsible for our lives, our actions, our movements, our beliefs, and our ability to love. We have the power to change our path. All the power to change our path is in our actions.

My mom was a Depression-era survivor. She grew up in eastern Ohio, a coal mining area on the border of West Virginia. When I would go there as a kid, I remember every morning being able to write my name on the hood of my grandpa’s car in that night’s deposit of coal dust. It was not a rich area. The story my mom told me goes like this.

It’s hot here in Nicaragua. We were living in Granada— very hot, very humid, and not the easiest place to self-isolate with six kids. So we thought maybe we could find an isolated beach to escape the heat and play in the waves. We climbed into our rented, manual transmission, diesel, 16-passenger HiAce van to go explore. Driving in Nicaragua is not like driving in the U.S. On the two-and-a-half hour drive to the beach, we dodged cows, dogs, horses, ox carts, horse carts, people riding horses, and people who walk in the road like it is a sidewalk. This is in addition to more standard traffic like cars, trucks, motorcycles, public buses, and bikes.

I saw no weakness, infirmity, or surrender in old people when I was young. And I don’t see weakness, infirmity, or surrender as an age thing today. Lots of young and old people have surrendered to drugs, alcohol, video games, work, overeating, bigotry, hate, biblical laziness, and sloth, or the five principal Kleshas of Buddhism, namely: attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride, and jealousy. Age was not the cause of choosing a path of unfulfilled surrender.

Driving in Nicaragua is not like driving in the U.S. On the two-and-a-half hour drive to the beach, we dodged cows, dogs, horses, ox carts, horse carts, people riding horses, and people who walk in the road like it is a sidewalk. This is in addition to more standard traffic like cars, trucks, motorcycles, public buses, and bikes. On that day, after lots of wrong turns, we never made it to a usable beach. On the way home, we drove through a very narrow street in a small village called Santa Teresa. THUD! My front tire went into an uncovered drainage hole

One thing that can really make ripples is if a person is essentially “on assignment”—acting as a participant journalist. For the anniversary of Spirituality & Health, we want to cocreate great stories— to put our readers on assignment to do good works. And so we’ve partnered with the Utopia Foundation to make that happen. When confronted by “Who are you? Why are you here?” you may be able to say, in all honesty, “I’m on assignment!” This blog post explains how.

I lived in what would be considered an intentional community from age 18 to 25. I think the community worked because of a few key things: We were selective and ruthless about who we let in. We prohibited drugs and alcohol on the acres. We expected members to keep commitments—or get out!

Paul's books are being distributed at a Peace Conference called AMANI in Eastern DRC Congo.

Paul spoke at the Northern Uganda Peace Conference 2017, at Gulu University. The event presentation team included religious leaders, peace advocates, Peace Studies instructors, teachers, media specialists and journalists from Northern Uganda.