death | Mostly Bright Ideas

Browsing All posts tagged under »death«

Now, and Then

August 5, 2011

When I was a young boy, I wanted to travel back in time. People in comic books did it with no more effort than it took me to walk to the candy store for a box of Milk Duds. Time travel seemed like it would be fun, and the possibility of doing so was never […]

Worth A Try?

July 27, 2011

Once again, an individual has caused mass death and destruction, and sent a wave of fear circling the globe. Once again, people are lamenting the world’s ever-increasing insanity. And once again, a separate incident — specifically, the death of a celebrity — has occurred almost simultaneously, seeming to compete for attention with the larger event. Is […]

Arrivals and Departures

May 4, 2011

I didn’t bother to check the gas gauge. The tank was full. It had to be. Everybody knows that when you rent a car, you pick it up with a full tank and you return it the same way. Besides, there had been some confusion at the customer service counter. I’d paid for a compact […]

Live, Die, Repeat. But Please Spare Us the Dibbly-Dobbly.

April 11, 2011

A Brief Discussion of Reincarnation and the World Cup of Cricket. And Heaven and Baseball, too. As part of my attempt to co-write another post about India with blogging friend Priya of Partial View, I watched the Cricket World Cup Final on April 2. After defeating arch-rival Pakistan in the semi-finals, India was playing Sri […]

Paradise Cost

February 1, 2011

I was five when I first learned about Heaven. Or maybe I was younger, I’m not really sure. I tried to take notes, but I was writing with crayons and my penmanship wasn’t the greatest. All I know is, by the time I turned ten I had completely wrecked the concept. Most of my hard […]

Trick? Or Treat? Or Neither?

October 31, 2010

Our high school’s guidance office had a Career Room. Students could sit in there and research different professions, all arranged on large cards in a file box. One of the careers was Mortician, and I remember wondering, who chooses that? What kind of eighteen-year-old, with a bright and promising future spread out before them, says, […]

Does God Exist? Yes, and No.

July 27, 2010

Is there a God? As a child, I never heard anyone ask this question. We skipped over it, at home and in my Catholic school. The questions we jumped to were from the Baltimore Catechism: Who made us? (God made us.) Who is God? (God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things […]

Stored Images

July 6, 2010

I grew a beard once, kept it for about a month, and felt self-conscious the whole time. I’d walk down the street and assume everyone who saw me was thinking, “Hey, look at that guy! He’s not supposed to have a beard!” The reality, of course, was that no one was thinking that about me. […]

What Is It Good For?

June 30, 2010

I have never been to war. I don’t know how to write about it, other than to say I hope my son never goes. My thoughts and feelings are simplistic in most areas, and especially so when it comes to this topic. I can’t get much past the level of a young child who asks […]

“Zabaglione”

June 15, 2010

This is a long essay, more than two thousand words, about an experience I had in Sicily. I created it as a page, rather than a post, because of its length. I hope you’ll read it when you have some time.