Dear Friends,

Since around the 1980’s we have been fighting a “War on Drugs”. And as a friend of mine reminds me, “Drugs are winning the War on Drugs”. Despite our best efforts and intentions, drug use, drug related crime, enrichment of the drug cartel’s wealth and power and drug related deaths are off the charts. And all this got a big assist from Arizona voters.

Dear Friends,

During the 90’s I was mostly in a time warp. That’s because I was in jail. Actually, I was a Prison Chaplain, served that sentence for about 12 years. But when I went back into Parish ministry, I started hearing something that confounded me. Namely, the amount of pornography use that men were engaged in.

Dear Friends,

If you are not an Opera fan but would like to venture into this wonderful musical genre, a good place to start is with the Opera Pagliacci by Leoncavallo. It is a simple, easy to follow work in two acts. It starts out with a Prologue that reminds the audience that actors have feelings too and that this story is about real people.

Dear Friends,

September is National Recovery Month; bringing awareness that there is a solution to the problem of addiction/alcoholism. Alcoholics Anonymous, the granddaddy of recovery, puts it this way, when describing how to deal with the problem: “without help it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power-that one is God. May you find him now!”