One part of what makes Awkward Beginnings — this month’s theme, meditation HERE — so challenging is that they often involve some variation of the burden of proof. As every courtroom TV fan knows, legally this means convincing a judge or a jury, through a preponderance of evidenc...

For seventeen years, Mark Twain lived only 11 miles away from where I’m sitting at my desk right now. It was definitely his creative peak, where he wrote his most famous works including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connect...

He certainly had a flair for drama. In fact, he’d crafted an entire “smoking gun” reveal — a true “gotcha!” moment. It caught us — a handful of dorky high school students — completely by surprise. Perhaps we were just naïve, but I don’t think anyone could have foreseen this particular mi...

“What do you mean ‘He’s Vanished’?” I asked. “We just haven’t seen him,” came the polite but embarrassed reply. “Do you mean since lunch — or for weeks?” “It’s been days since he showed up. Honestly, we have no idea where he is or if he’s ever coming back.” Fortunately, neither I nor ...

This meditation is 6 minutes long with 12 minutes more of music by my talent friend David Buchs.