Building Our Main Street Building Our Main Street by Kristian James is an excellent example of a truth I have discovered. Many books described as written for children and young people are really books for all of us to read. Kristian James is a first lieutenant and 20-year veteran in the US Air Force who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was also deployed to help in the Coroner’s office during the pandemic. Kristian also writes books, supposedly for children,... Read more
Voting as a Form of Prayer Some of us have a difficult time thinking about voting as a form of prayer. We may have a particularly partisan approach to life. Our decisions about voting do not necessarily involve any reflection of contemplation. We know what we think and how we want to vote to support our ideas. Others of us do not experience voting as a form of prayer because we do not vote. We are disillusioned and do not... Read more
What Happens When We Choose to Give Up? We can all feel tired and frustrated. Some of us become overwhelmed and choose to give up. We can all understand and relate to how they feel. Whether at work or at home, thinking about finances or our physical health, we know how it is. It might feel like wanting to stay in bed all day or lie in the sun on a beach. We may feel defeated or unsure of whether we can take... Read more
Waking Up on the First Morning of November The first morning of November can be challenging for me. It is not because Halloween has kept me up late last night. Our days are growing darker and cooler. We will soon change to standard time and squander all the daylight we supposedly saved over the summer. The sun no longer shines in the corners of our windows to beckon us into a new day. The year is drawing to a close... Read more
Choosing Our Spiritual Life Costumes Some of us are busy finding costumes for this weekend. Many of us have already chosen our spiritual life costumes. We may be hosting a party or giving out treats and we want to look just right. Some of us spend months discerning what costumes we will wear and how we want to look. We may have invested time and effort into designing and constructing our costumes, making sure they are exactly right. Many of... Read more
Getting In Our Own Way Listening to sacred stillness is about more than just being calm and sitting still. We need to learn how to stay out of our own way. It can be easy for us to get stuck in our image of sitting quietly. We see the challenge as meeting our goal of five minutes or twenty minutes of stillness. The truly important part is our openness, our willingness to listen. This is not a test or competition or anything... Read more
The Holidays at the End of the Year It is happening again. The push is starting. Momentum is building. We are swept up into the holidays at the end of the year. Many years are like this. We congratulate ourselves about making it to the end of the summer, and everything picks up steam. We reach the top of the roller coaster around the end of September. Then we begin to race down through the holidays at the end of... Read more
Wrapping Ourselves in Darkness The daylight hours are growing shorter where I live. It is as if we spend October wrapping ourselves in darkness, preparing for the shorter days and longer nights which are coming. What was it like before we learned about electricity, when our only light was from the sun or from a flame? Now we are surrounded by bright light, light which overwhelms the light of the stars in the night sky. We obliterate the dark with... Read more
Love Letters I believe in the power of love letters. Few of us write letters anymore. We have so many faster ways to communicate. Now we call or talk over Zoom or FaceTime. We send an email or a text illustrated with emojis, or post a message on Facebook or Twitter. Many of us feel a little overwhelmed by the number of wayoptions we have for communicating. It seems like too much effort to sit down and compose a letter... Read more
Learning How to Listen Learning how to listen may be the most intimate thing we can do with another person without touching them. Some people think listening is waiting for a person who is talking to take a breath so we can talk. They assume listening is an opportunity to think about what they want to say next. Learning to listen is listening on a more significant level. It is not merely hearing what someone says, but connecting with who they truly are. Learning... Read more
Strategic Monk
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