A life in words

  • “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage”

    I found myself thinking about courage tonight, and found a quote that I liked a good deal: Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius I guess I related to it since I’ve gone through periods in life where just putting one foot in front of the other…

  • My Beautiful Mother

    Just after Mom died, her friend, Diann Macbeth, wrote a remembrance of her based on decades of church service together, which my family has treasured ever since. I now share it in full: Janet, My Friend Occasionally someone enters our life so softly and gently that at first we scarcely notice they are there. Like…

  • Mom’s Suicide

    On March 1st, 2003 my mother shot herself in the head, ending her life at the age of 46. Today marks twelve years since that day. For much of that time I rarely ever spoke of my mother’s suicide. One small indication of this: the first posts on this blog were less than a year…

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it. Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.John Adams, Thoughts on Government, April 1776