Paul Wenzler

I am a 63 year old male, born and raised Catholic. I grew up in Memphis Tenn, during the civil rights struggle, but after a stint in the military during the Viet Nam War, I married and moved to New Mexico. I have a daughter who is 30, a horse trainer and back in academia, and my vocation/occupatition is carpentry and fine woodworking, although at present I make my living by doing handyman type maintance on the houses of friends who know me. I do not practice any "religion", although my first and lasting mentor was the Monk, Thomas Merton, whose writings carried me through many dilemmas as I grew older. I've had three mentors in my efforts to grow, and Merton was the first. The second was the cabinet maker James Kranov, whose books guided me in the lessons of acquiring the skills to participate in the exercises of fine woodworking. And finally the British philosopher RG Collingwood, whose works I studied diligently for a number of years, until his works raised the question that began this whole effort on my part to learn how to write in order to present ideas that have been with us from the beginning of time.