Showing results by author "James Nugent" in All Categories

Sometimes a house is a house. Sometimes a house is a home. And sometimes a home is a spiritual base from which a person can have a lifetime of adventure and love. I do suggest you use this short story as food for thought. Even one new idea can make all the difference. Most of the unique things about our home come as adaptations from Roman Catholic culture. Some are uniquely my own. I invite you to my home through this book. Our home is a reflection of our values and temperaments.

This is not a book about how to use shot guns and other weapons when intruders evade your living space. There are plenty of books addressing the practical and legal aspects of that kind of defense. This is a book about more passive ways to be safe in your home. This book talks about strategies for keeping the bad guys out and what you might do if they get in.

I have spent decades trying to get closer to God. Since I was 20 years old; I have been aware of our loving God longing to be with us and heal us of our hurts. I have found this intimacy with God through many techniques. God can be found in meditation, contemplation, Holy Sacraments many other kinds prayer techniques.

Writer's block has caused some people to actually quit their careers as writers. It is something that must be overcome sooner or later, or you will become a washed-up writer and a failure. Looking back on my personal struggles, I have some helpful observations and tricks to beating the phenomena. This is my story.

The ability to make a fire for warmth in cool and wet environments is critical for survival. Without fire you may die within a few hours. I have spent my life living and playing in the Pacific Northwest in the United States.

Kayaking at night has its rewards and hazards. I have noticed that when you master a sport, you eventually want to challenge yourself. Sooner or later you end up doing it at night. Low visibility takes a sport and turns it into an extremely isolating, yet empowering, experience. My life and joy for living are in only my hands. I must make peace with God, silence my personal fears, then embrace life to its fullest. This is the pleasure I have found in kayaking at night.

The following tales are completely true and can draw all of us to think about the important things in life. They all take place around different campfires at the beach. In some cases, the names have been changed to honor the privacy of people. Yet their stories were so rich in humanity, that it would have been a shame to not tell them. Sometimes a campfire is more than it seems at first. These adventure and beach fires took place over a period of 13 years.

I climbed into my orange plastic Kayak and zoomed off to the green shallows of Young Cove. Just what is it that makes paddling this waterway such pleasure? Sometimes I think it is the kayak music. That is the musical sound of the hull traveling through the water on a quiet day. It is constantly changing and it is always calming to me.

I built a raft out of plastic pop bottles and plywood, and then sailed away for a Saturday. I had sailed many kinds of vessels in the waters of southern Puget Sound, but never a homemade raft. The raft cost me $60. The adventure was priceless. Join me as I try this grand experiment.

I was paddling hard with the wind and waves coming across my port bow. The storm had calmed down a bit and I was making a mile long mad dash from The Evergreen State College Beach to Young Cove. To the right inside Young Cove was my lagoon and my Madrona tree to which I tie up my various small water craft.

In January 2014 I stumbled upon an announcement that the South Sound Estuary Association was looking for volunteer beach naturalist. For $50 I would receive training in beach ecosystems and marine biology. In return I was expected to provide 15 hours of volunteer service to the general public on the local beaches.

August 2014: I set my trusty 14-foot kayak in my lagoon. It was a rising tide heading south, and I had several hours before it reversed and dumped some 13 or more feet of water out of the inlet. Eld Inlet is approximately six nautical miles long. The southern two miles can be navigated only at high tide. It turns into a mud flat and a shellfish farm at low tide. At high tide it is a pristine water way of immense beauty.

I spent 22 years of my life in part-time private practice as a counselor. The entire time, I was amazed at how really smart people would make really poor choices over and over. One definition of crazy is when we do the same thing repeatedly and persist in the hope that something new will be the outcome.

The book is called Social Jujitsu and Powerful Principles for Managing Social Conflict by James Nugent. It teaches the three key strategies of evading, deflecting, and redirecting social aggressors. This book moves on to teach about drawing the aggressor in getting them to react to you, putting the aggressor in a double bind, and helping them self-destruct.

This audiobook will examine a few of the beliefs in the Roman Catholic Church. I have no idea if I will be Catholic when I am done. Yet a faith untested is worthless.

Congratulations. You have completed a graduate program, and you have decided to serve the needs of students. You will soon learn that it takes tact and skill to be a good school counselor. It also will take some personal fortitude and perhaps a bit of luck in order to be successful and thrive in your chosen field. They probably never mentioned the above to you, but it will be okay if you keep your wits about you.

For a modern culture that does not highly value life, it is paradoxical that we don't want to talk about the dying process or the possibility of an afterlife. Catholics sometime suffer from the same hesitation about talking about death. Yet the Roman Catholic religion and culture are a constant preparation for that moment when we must trust Jesus for our salvation. All the rituals and sacraments, prepare our minds and hearts for that thing from which there is no escape.

From my earliest days, my father taught me to survive in multiple scenarios. He taught me to survive in three environments. They were: an aircraft crash in the mountains, a ship wreck, and being lost in the forest. In each scenario he taught me that a person needed to have seven types of tools in order to survive. Over the decades I have added an eighth type of tool. While the category of "communications" is not critical for life support, it can facilitate escape from a difficult situation.

An Extraordinary Eucharistic Visitor is a lay minister who serves a unique ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. We are lay ministers whom are trained and commissioned to take the real presence of Jesus our savior to the homebound and the sick. In accordance with the guidelines and laws of the Roman Catholic Church; The Extraordinary Eucharistic Visitor takes custody of the Holy Sacrament.

During the winter of 2004 I had a medical surprise - I found out that I was very sick. I was 43 years old and it looked like I might not make it to live past my father's age at his early death - only 49 years old. Here is my story.