Showing results by author "James Nugent" in All Categories

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.

There are many guides and books that give excellent wisdom for those who would seek to make an offering of their lives to God. Still there is little practical information about how about how to go about the day to day business of being a Benedictine Oblate. This audiobook is an attempt to give practical suggestions to the beginner and the "expert". However, if what you do, gets you closer to God every day, then don't change a thing. But if you need new materials, new practices, new ideas or attitudes; then just consider listening to this audiobook.

If a Catholic couple chooses to avail themselves of the spiritual resources available to a Catholic married couple; the relationship will last a life time and thrive while doing it. A failure of a marriage is directly related to the spiritual heath of the individuals involved. Even if only one of the parties embraces the spiritual principals the marriage can be saved.

I went to learn more about Esperanto, a language that was invented 126 years ago. In the end I found hope for the future.

Kayaking like most extreme sports is potentially fatal. The hazards are too numerous to list here. However, with proper instruction and equipment the hazards can be minimalized. This book is not meant to be any kind of instruction. It is only a general discussion. All information presented should not be relied upon for safety. It is intended as a partial list of issues you may bring up with a certified instructor. No actual paddle techniques are discussed because you must use a certified instructor if you want to learn the way of water safely.

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.

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.

Catholic Christians have a different attitude toward pain, even if it is part of the natural dying process. This little booklet is an attempt to illuminate the Catholic Christian way of facing pain and transform it into a useful and productive time in life. It is a frank discussion. If you have not evolved in your relationship with Jesus, you may find this discussion hard to understand or even offensive. Still, if you listen and then pray you will understand. With understanding may come peace and joy.

From time to time all of us have social conflicts. Sometimes we are invited to dance with people who have more external power than us, for example, a supervisor or an elder sibling or parent. Sometimes we might be invited to struggle with someone we don’t care so much about; like a stranger or acquaintance or a distant in-law. In either case the choice to engage or abstain is ours. If we engage, it is important to do our best to leave our dance partner some dignity and show some respect.

Then the economy turned on the middle and upper middle class. Then suddenly, it wasn’t possible to always find a job that provided a suitable amount of money to maintain our chosen lifestyle. After that millions of our generation became the new poor. A strange thing happened after coming to accept the new economy. The new poor had little or no poverty survival skills. Things that might be obvious to a child of poverty eluded the new poor.

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.

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.

With the popularity of the first book, The Good News About Being Catholic, I was destined to produce a second book. The first book was inspired by conversations I had during a two-week trip to a southern university in the US. The lack of accurate information and the bigotry I encountered by the well-meaning Christians and others along the way was shocking to me.

Be that as it may, I decided to write this short piece on the psychological healing aspects of the Sacrament of Confession, now called Reconciliation.

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 book is a slice of my life. In most ways my life has been rather normal, and in a few ways, it has been extraordinary. I figure I am in the last two decades of my life. Hopefully as I share the particular and intentional things I have done, you will be inspired to make your life outstanding or at least enjoyable. Come visit my life.

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.

This is my story of how I became a Right Wing Fundamentalist Roman Catholic and of course a Republican. I eventually became politically incorrect, and finally at peace with my church and my politics.

There is too much intentional and mistaken misinformation in our present culture about the purposes and practices of modern Catholicism. This had led to endless bigotry and needless hate speech and deeds against Christ's original Church. This little audiobook is an attempt to explain to fellow Christians what it really means to be Roman Catholic. It is not a debate. It's an honest attempt on my part to share. It is not an attempt to convert you to joining the more than 1.2 billion Christians who call themselves Catholic.

For twenty years I searched for my perfect true love. I failed miserably until I asked God to help. Miracles do really happen!

The Scripture said something like, “pray always.” I pondered the issue for a while and then gave up. It was a strange concept. How could a person pray all the minutes of the day? What was prayer anyway, and how could you do it and know that God was really there? It was a bit of a mystery to me which I would not resolve for another 25 years.