Tom Smith

Soul Seeing: Do you really experience that creative and enriching empty space when you meditate and, if so, how often do you get there and how long can you stay there? 

In the wake of his wife's death, Tom Smith came to realize that he was not learning to live alone; he was learning to live with absence. There is a difference. 

Soul Seeing: Reminders of our inevitable death are always opportunities to live more fully now, to love better, to serve more, to do what we know is right, to show we are grateful for family and friends, to worship our God, to smile at our neighbors.

Soul Seeing: In the past year, my relationship with Sugar has turned sour. Sugar and I had a compatible and mutually satisfying relationship since childhood. Like most breakups, this one includes betrayal, sadness and regret.

Soul Seeing: For a kid, the dark basement was a scary place. When my dad said, "Tom, run downstairs and get my hammer," the operative word was "run."

Soul Seeing: The reward-punishment dynamic was so pervasive in life that the extra jolt of my parents' acceptance for who I was simply felt good, though unnamed and unexplained.