Welcome to a Thanksgiving like none ever. If you’re like a lot of people, the alarming surge in Covid-19 cases, combined with warnings from public health officials, has altered your holiday travel plans or changed the plans of friends and family members you were expecting to see. What can we do but make the best of it? While the Thanksgiving gatherings may be smaller than usual, across America we will still be celebrating the holiday. In my home, we’ll have… Read more
November 24, 2020
2 Thanksgiving Prayers for our Covid-19 Times
November 24, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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November 18, 2020
7 Ways to Get Your Monkey Mind Back to Sleep
November 18, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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How did you sleep last night? Perhaps you’re like me—one of those people who has no trouble falling asleep, but who often wakes up at 3 or 4 in the morning feeling wide awake. I’ll then proceed to toss and turn for an hour, maybe two, before mercifully sleep again washes over me. As I try to sleep, the monkey mind is on the loose. The notion of the monkey mind comes from Buddhism and refers to the mind jumping… Read more
November 11, 2020
Joe Biden and the 11 Traits of Character
November 11, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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Let’s put political parties and issues aside for a moment and look at character. What were the moral and emotional qualities that distinguished the presidential candidates as individuals? Could you label each of them as honest and trustworthy? How about kind and empathetic? Character is important because it sets the tone for those around you, whether they be your political followers, your co-workers, your children, grandchildren or extended family. What you do and how you act rubs off on others,… Read more
November 4, 2020
Deepak Chopra on How to Survive Election Week
November 4, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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Is it over yet? Just when you thought it might be safe to come out again, the election goes into overtime. It’s enough to make you drink—which I’ve been doing pretty much since the polls closed Tuesday evening. I’m sure my life will return back to normal, when and if they ever declare a winner. Yet there’s more to stress-relief than a strong pint of ale or a glass of red wine. I’ve written previously about how to de-stress almost… Read more
October 29, 2020
Follow Your Bliss—by Answering These 3 Questions
October 29, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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What is the secret to a happy and contented life? We’ve all heard the aphorism made famous by the American author and mythologist Joseph Campbell that you should “follow your bliss.” It sounds like a brilliant idea, one that most of us can get behind—but what does it mean exactly? Campbell’s remarks on bliss occurred during a discussion with journalist Bill Moyers on a popular PBS series titled The Power of Myth that first aired in 1988. He expanded on… Read more
October 22, 2020
The Man Who Went to Heaven—and Came Back
October 22, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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Where do we go when we die? Maybe you believe that there is no place to go, that when this life is over the light goes out for good. But if you’re like me, you believe that the body is merely a vehicle for the soul—and that after the death of your body, your soul lives on in a world beyond this one. It’s a place that some people refer to as heaven. In the book Regaining Paradise, Forming a New Worldview,… Read more
October 15, 2020
5 Ways to Hear What God is Telling You
October 15, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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God is always speaking to us at different times and different ways. That’s the basic premise of the book Discernment by the late Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest, author of 39 books, and religious teacher at Yale, Harvard and Notre Dame. Of course, the idea that God is in constant contact with us may cause you to ask: “If God is talking, why don’t I hear him?” Nouwen says the way to hear God is through the process of… Read more
October 7, 2020
Did Donald Trump Break the #1 Rule of Karma?
October 7, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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To put it mildly, Donald Trump has engaged in some questionable pandemic-related behavior. As The Washington Post succinctly put it, “President Trump contracted the novel coronavirus after months in which he and people around him avoided taking basic steps to prevent the virus’s spread, like wearing masks and avoiding large indoor crowds.” What I’m wondering, and maybe you are too, is this: Is President Trump’s Covid-19 infection the result of karma? Will his continuing disregard for the disease, and the… Read more
October 1, 2020
Is God “Closer Than Your Own Breath”?
October 1, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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“God is indwelling; and because God is indwelling, I do not have to seek God so much as I have to remember my connection with God.” Remembering our connection to God—that’s the hard part, isn’t it? The words above come from journalist Karen Brailsford and her new book Sacred Landscapes of the Soul. Comprised of a series of short essays that she calls “landscapes,” her stories have a common thread: the idea that God is everywhere and with us always,… Read more
September 24, 2020
If You’re Not Drowning, You’re a Lifeguard (2020)
September 24, 2020 By Tom Rapsas
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I first wrote a story with this title a few years ago, but now it’s time for a new take on it—because if ever there was a need for more lifeguards it is now. There’s a churning rip-current of bad news and negativity out there and it’s taking people down with it. So, it’s time to be on guard for those around us who are slipping beneath the surface. Or, if needed, to rescue ourselves. Some simple but urgent guidance… Read more
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