General Updates

Season of gratitude

By Ken / April 14, 2016 /

My wife plans to buy some really good thank-you cards today. It’s been an uplifting week, actually two in a row, and we anticipate another to come at the month’s end. This is a season of gratitude. From people like you to Denise and myself. Then back at you as we recharge. Reverberating wherever hearts…

Read More

Skating for a good cause

By Ken / March 3, 2016 / Comments Off on Skating for a good cause

Quite often, away from the blather of loud egos vying for our attention, people like Ben Rabinovitz quietly do good work to help someone else. Not that Rabinovitz is downplaying the event he is organizing on April 3. His group, Skating 4 The Nation, will put on a charity hockey game to benefit our bereavement…

Read More

Overcoming the negative

By Ken / February 23, 2016 / Comments Off on Overcoming the negative

Raise your hand if you feel awash in uncertainty and negativity like I do so far this winter. For some of us, the mid- or late-winter blahs have been compounded by a clutch of bad news from both near and far. For me, there is the near demise of a close friend who seems unwilling…

Read More

Shrinking in an expanding world

By Ken / January 13, 2016 / Comments Off on Shrinking in an expanding world

Maybe gun control proponents should try harder to understand those fears, and where they come from. Following a life-altering event, many of us are faced with two starkly different choices. We can contract and withdraw into ourselves. Or we can gradually expand, grappling with both the acute pain and a new reality that’s dawning. We…

Read More

Conscience matters in a ‘mute world’

By Ken / December 15, 2015 /

A suggested anecdote to demagogues who urge us to know nothing and suspect everything. Columnist Roger Cohen of The New York Times wrote Monday, “It would be hard to imagine an atmosphere better suited to the politics of fear.” He’s spot on. We’re on the precipice of being consumed by our fears. Of jihadists infiltrating…

Read More

Puzzling out your life’s work


By Ken / November 4, 2015 / Comments Off on Puzzling out your life’s work


How are you feeling about your life’s work? Who or what speaks to you? Do you ever feel that the universe is speaking to you, encouraging you to stay on the path you’re on? Or is it telling you to change course, and get on with the true work of your life? Lately I’ve been…

Read More

Introducing “Hope Heals”

By Ken / October 14, 2015 / Comments Off on Introducing “Hope Heals”

I’d like to share an update on my forthcoming narrative nonfiction book, which I’m naming Hope Heals. It is about people who find a new purpose after unspeakable loss–and how they go about it. My goal is to help lift up others going through tough stuff as they find compelling responses to loss and other…

Read More

14 years later, a call to sustain hope

By Ken / September 11, 2015 / Comments Off on 14 years later, a call to sustain hope

“Tragedy wasn’t the only thing born on 9/11. Hope was born, too.” — David Paine, co-founder 9/11day.org  Cindy McGinty, a 9/11 widow who refused to curl up in a ball when she was suddenly forced to raise two young boys alone, issues a call to action as we pause today to remember the fallen. “Think…

Read More

On the cusp of victory

By Ken / July 30, 2015 /

This weekend marks the 35th year of the Pan-Mass Challenge bike-a-thon benefitting cancer research and patient care. As legions of PMC riders prepare to click in for up to 192 miles over two days, lifted by several thousand volunteers and supporters along the roadsides, it’s worth taking stock of the breadth of their contribution. This…

Read More

Fighting the rip

By Ken / July 15, 2015 /

A few weeks ago my wife and I were aboard a friend’s boat barreling against a strong current and the frothing eddies in Woods Hole. It’s a place that any mariner around Cape Cod worth his salt shows respect for, while only fools roll the dice. Our boat ride coincides with a series of paradoxes…

Read More