Books
The Simple Leader: Personal and Professional Leadership at the Nexus of Lean and Zen
Lean manufacturing principles, also known as the Toyota Production System, are very effective at streamlining and reducing waste in organizations. Zen concepts can help create a calm, peaceful, and focused personal life. Over the last three decades I have discovered the power of lean and Zen, and have found how the concepts are remarkably complementary to one another. This book describes, with short summaries, how the concepts can be used to simplify personal and professional leadership, thereby reducing chaos and stress while improving effectiveness and balance.
Sacred Editors is a multi-volume exploration of how sacred texts from the world’s major religions were shaped— not only by divine inspiration, but by human hands. Across history, scribes, scholars, rulers, and reformers made critical decisions about what to include, what to translate, and what to suppress. This series traces those decisions—canon by canon, faith by faith—revealing how theology, politics, preservation, and power have all played a role in creating the scriptures we know today.
Sacred Editors: Christianity
From the Gospels of Thomas and Mary to the Book of Revelation, this volume traces how a diverse and chaotic swirl of early Christian texts became a single Bible. It explores battles over canon, translation, and authority—revealing how bishops, emperors, and scribes shaped Christian Scripture as much as apostles and martyrs.
Sacred Editors: Judaism
Long before the Hebrew Bible was finalized, Jewish communities wrestled with competing scrolls, regional variants, and sacred memory shaped by exile and empire. This volume follows the evolution of Torah and Tanakh—from Elephantine to the Dead Sea Scrolls—and the editorial choices that defined Jewish textual tradition.
Sacred Editors: Islam
The Qur’an is revered by Muslims as the unaltered word of God—yet even within early Islamic history, questions arose about recitation, preservation, and transmission. This book respectfully explores the complex human history of how the Qur’an and its interpretive traditions were preserved, taught, and standardized.
Sacred Editors: Hinduism
Hindu sacred texts span millennia, from ancient Vedic chants to epic narratives and philosophical commentaries. This volume investigates how oral transmission, sectarian priorities, and poetic vision shaped the evolving canon of Hinduism—while spotlighting both preservation and innovation across time.
Sacred Editors: Buddhism
From palm-leaf sutras to stone inscriptions and Silk Road scrolls, Buddhist texts have undergone extraordinary journeys. This book traces how different schools and regions preserved—or lost—sacred teachings, and how editorial transmission became central to defining Buddhist identity across Asia.
Sacred Editors: Lost Texts
War, fire, colonization, and decay have destroyed more sacred texts than survive today. This volume recounts the dramatic stories of what was lost—and what was miraculously recovered—across religious traditions. It reminds us that preservation is never guaranteed, and memory always contested.
Sacred Editors: Lost Women
Behind every sacred tradition are women who taught, led, composed, and were later erased. This volume uncovers the lost voices of female prophets, apostles, scribes, and interpreters—asking not just what they said, but what their exclusion has cost our spiritual history.
The Beatitudes Path
An interfaith journey through the eight blessings of Jesus, this book explores each Beatitude with reflections from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Blending scripture, commentary, story, and practice, it offers a weeklong rhythm of sacred reflection for daily life.
A biography of our long-time Morro Bay neighbor, Harleigh Thayer Knott.
Christmas Greetings from a Remarkable Life
Harleigh Thayer Knott was born in Morro Bay, California in 1929 and died in the same house in Morro Bay in 2019. Between those two milestones was a remarkable life that included an education at Stanford and traveling throughout the world. She developed deep interests in topics ranging from opera to history, polo, Indy car racing, and even frogs. Harleigh wrote an annual Christmas letter to her friends and family to keep them updated on her adventures. These letters went into considerable detail with a humorous and captivating style.