Not long ago, as I was walking out the door of a “Gesture of Awareness” meditation retreat held in a hip section of lower Manhattan’s Chelsea, I nearly collided with Michael Imperioli, the actor who plays Tony Soprano’s drug-addicted nephew Christopher on HBO’s mega-successful, crime-family show “The Sopranos.”

You could say that this was just one of those “New York” moments, but I was in such a peaceful mindset that the mere sight of this man (he was walking a child by the hand) got me chattering like crazy again! He was easily recognizable, even in dark sunglasses, as the same fellow I’d seen chop up dead bodies, spasm under the influence of IV drugs, and describe Tony Soprano as “the man I’m going to hell for.” Last season on the show, he also stood by when his devoted fiancee was killed.

Turns out, the actor Michael Imperioli is a perfectly nice fellow, and web research reveals that he does all kinds of good things for charity. But our chance encounter made me ask my chattering self: “What am I going to do, as a person who seeks peace, health, and goodness, when the final season of ‘The Sopranos’ debuts in 2006?”

The violence in “The Sopranos” could be the most realistic in television history. You can see the victims’ faces swelling as they heave their last breaths. You contemplate the lost blood, live through the murders with all of your senses blazing. I actually feel I’ve been damaged by this TV program. And yet, and yet…so skillfull is the acting and writing, and the planting of the hope for Tony Soprano’s comeuppance or redemption, that even folks like me who listen to Handel and raise children who only recently have been allowed to include words like “stupid” in their vocabulary, even people like me are eagerly waiting to catch the next installment.

I’m hearing a similar refrain in a lot of your posts. You too are doing things that you sense are “bad” for you. You know better, but you somehow get carried away. We can work on this together.

I remember talking to a rabbi once about a person close to me who had died. This person had a good side and a bad side. And I felt so appreciative when the rabbi said, “Well, God saw it all. And God can contain it all for you–the good side and the bad side.”

So maybe God has been watching HBO. I imagine so. But right now, I’m mostly wishing I’d had the presence of mind to call after the vanishing Imperioli, “Hey, I’ve got to know: how are you guys going to wrap it up?”