I want the reader to know I appreciate their time in auditing my work. I feel so blessed to be writing on this page. My intentions are to unfold my soul through stories and poetry.

Being a Buddhist has given me such an incredible opportunity to view my Western Roots from a more Eastern perspective. All my life I have heard Talk is Cheap and Actions Speak Louder than Words, sometimes even The Highways to Hell Are Paved in Good Intentions. I believe wholeheartedly that most all Americans will tell you how very true and good these axioms are. I too was a proponent of these and other phrases so often spoken into the consciousness of the youth. I now ask you to award me the openness of your mind as we take a look from a much different perspective.

I believe the road to Hell is not paved in good intentions, however good intentions can transmute poor reactions.

Most of this world is reactive. My point is that our intentions are most often doomed to be derailed due to the amount of reactive energy in our creative space.

If you were to ask me directions to the Memphis Zoo and I say sure: go down Highway 55 South until you see a sign in West Memphis that takes you across the New Bridge to 240 East. Then look for the Midtown exit that takes you to the Parkway and follow the signs posted until you reach the Memphis Zoo with all its Egyptian monoliths and fun filled facts about the wondrous animals housed within.

And you miss the Midtown exit, then does it follow that the zoo was not exactly where I placed it? No, this simply means your actions took you to East Memphis instead of Midtown. So if you were to reflect back you might say well his directions or intentions were never for me to reach the Zoo. The actions of every creator around you directly impact your ability to manifest your creations, and it works the opposite as well. Your actions affect other people’s ability to manifest their intended creations.

Let’s say I dropped you, your tools, and generator off to work on an abandoned home some thirteen miles from our city. Let’s also pretend for a moment that four hours later your generator runs out of gas and you were not charging your cell phone, so when you go to call me your battery is at one percent. So you place the call and after two short rings my melodious voice answers and agrees to get gas for the generator and that Double Whopper Meal no tomatoes. As soon as we hang up I pull out of my driveway and your cell phone dies. No big deal, you know that the solution is on the way.

Now after filling up my gas can for the generator I am pulling into that fast food joint when I am hit head on by a drunk driver killing me and injuring the other driver.

It is now been two hours and still no sign of me. Odd, so you wait another two hours until your frustration and hunger spurs you on to make a thirteen mile midnight walk back to the city. At daybreak you are just now getting to the outskirts of our city and you have thought of a whole laundry list of adjectives for me and cannot understand why I left you high and dry. Although my intentions were to save you with gas and much needed food, my actions seemed to have spoken a bit louder here. So much so you do not even try to call me because you are so disgusted with my performance it is better you just leave me as the ghost of memories past. Several times though you think about calling me and telling me just how you feel but each time you think better.

A few months go by and you are at the house of some mutual friends of ours enjoying a barbeque when in passing you see a pamphlet for my funeral. Upon reading it you discover the date and location of my death. You realize that I died trying to bring you gas and food and that one is not always the master of their own intentions.