Mostrando resultados por autor "James Nugent" en Todas las categorías

The ability to make a fire for warmth in cool and wet environments is critical for survival. Without fire you may die within a few hours. I have spent my life living and playing in the Pacific Northwest in the United States.

The following tales are completely true and can draw all of us to think about the important things in life. They all take place around different campfires at the beach. In some cases, the names have been changed to honor the privacy of people. Yet their stories were so rich in humanity, that it would have been a shame to not tell them. Sometimes a campfire is more than it seems at first. These adventure and beach fires took place over a period of 13 years.

I climbed into my orange plastic Kayak and zoomed off to the green shallows of Young Cove. Just what is it that makes paddling this waterway such pleasure? Sometimes I think it is the kayak music. That is the musical sound of the hull traveling through the water on a quiet day. It is constantly changing and it is always calming to me.

I built a raft out of plastic pop bottles and plywood, and then sailed away for a Saturday. I had sailed many kinds of vessels in the waters of southern Puget Sound, but never a homemade raft. The raft cost me $60. The adventure was priceless. Join me as I try this grand experiment.

From my earliest days, my father taught me to survive in multiple scenarios. He taught me to survive in three environments. They were: an aircraft crash in the mountains, a ship wreck, and being lost in the forest. In each scenario he taught me that a person needed to have seven types of tools in order to survive. Over the decades I have added an eighth type of tool. While the category of "communications" is not critical for life support, it can facilitate escape from a difficult situation.

An Extraordinary Eucharistic Visitor is a lay minister who serves a unique ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. We are lay ministers whom are trained and commissioned to take the real presence of Jesus our savior to the homebound and the sick. In accordance with the guidelines and laws of the Roman Catholic Church; The Extraordinary Eucharistic Visitor takes custody of the Holy Sacrament.

During the winter of 2004 I had a medical surprise - I found out that I was very sick. I was 43 years old and it looked like I might not make it to live past my father's age at his early death - only 49 years old. Here is my story.

This is an attempt to bust myths. There is a myth that we have no control of our personal happiness. The myth is that we are subject to the forces around us much like a stick in the tidal currents. We cannot control other people and things; and so we falsely believe that our personal happiness is just a matter of good fortune. So we falsely believe that some people are fortunate and have reasonably happy live and others are just destined to be miserable.

This is a story about what it is like to spend 40 days of your life with the "forty days for life movement." During the 40 days of fasting and praying out in front of Planned Parenthood; I tried to be there for some part of each day. Work and other distractions kept me away 6 days; but even when I wasn't downtown at the corner of Adams and Legion in Olympia WA, the pro-lifers were on my mind and in my heart from 8:00am to 8:00pm.

A recreational scuba diver visits Jules' Undersea Lodge in Key Largo Florida. Reflections and adventures begin.

Imagine you are having the time of your life. You have a wife of ten years whom you adore, two grown and independent step-sons, and a teaching career that looks quite promising. Then you wake up one morning with a congested head and swollen tongue. A day later you see a doctor at urgent care. You find out you have had stroke and you are a walking dead man with blood pressure too high for the machines to read but they do show at least 224/118. A normal reading is 120/80. This is bad, very bad.

The fog is just beginning to disperse after sunrise but this is not a problem for navigation because you are just going to follow the western shore. You are the first person in when the gate opens at the West Bay Park and your hand launched vessel slides effortlessly into the water. You are off. You pass a tiny Island 50 yards from the launch. Islands no matter how small always excite my mind. The island is perhaps 20' wide and has one small stick like tree growing on it.

In Catholic tradition, there are numerous forms of prayer. All of them are valid and productive and suited to the temperaments of different people. There is a common denominator in many of these holy methods and techniques of prayer. We are spending time with our loving creator. We are trying to have a sacred conversation. And when we manage to slow up enough to listen; prayer becomes a two way conversation.

The far southern reaches of Puget Sound are a beautiful region for sailing, boating, and small craft adventure. Still, people who live there and work there are among the few who get to enjoy it. This alternative guide to the waters of five inlets tells you how and why you might choose to visit these sparsely visited treasures of natural beauty.

When devout Catholics marry, they marry for life. They promise each other and God that they will not enter into another marriage until one of them dies. No matter what the issue, they are married for life. If they divorce and get married again outside the church, they will have sinned. They will be excluded from the primary sacrament, the Eucharist (communion).

I have spent decades trying to get closer to God. Since I was 20 years old; I have been aware of our loving God longing to be with us and heal us of our hurts. I have found this intimacy with God through many techniques. God can be found in meditation, contemplation, Holy Sacraments many other kinds prayer techniques.

August 2014: I set my trusty 14-foot kayak in my lagoon. It was a rising tide heading south, and I had several hours before it reversed and dumped some 13 or more feet of water out of the inlet. Eld Inlet is approximately six nautical miles long. The southern two miles can be navigated only at high tide. It turns into a mud flat and a shellfish farm at low tide. At high tide it is a pristine water way of immense beauty.

I spent 22 years of my life in part-time private practice as a counselor. The entire time, I was amazed at how really smart people would make really poor choices over and over. One definition of crazy is when we do the same thing repeatedly and persist in the hope that something new will be the outcome.

My wife and I began this voyage of self-discovery about two years ago. Our kids were gone and we wanted to use our living space a little differently. We wanted to clean out some of the clutter we had accumulated from raising two teenage boys and generally clean out our home. Little did we know that before we were done, we would change our view of material belongings, and actually begin rejecting our cultural addiction to owning more stuff.