Are you in a winter funk? I know I am. Once the Christmas decorations have been packed up, and the initial cheer of the New Year has dissipated, I’m ready for spring. And why not? Right now, where I live, it’s uncomfortably cold with “feels like” temperatures in the 20s. The trees are bare having dropped the last of their leaves. The skies are gray, with overcast days far outnumbering the sunny ones. And the winter blues are settling in.... Read more
In Almost Everything, Notes on Hope, Anne Lamott offers a funny take on a range of issues related to hope and the place it has in our lives. But hidden just beneath the humor can be found something else—pearls of wisdom. That’s why I’m adding Anne to my semi-regular series of writers who have, sometimes unknowingly, provided us with rules to live by. I think of LaMott as a blue-collar philosopher, earthy and salty, but whose advice and wise counsel... Read more
In Jesus, What He Really Said and Did, the author Stephen Mitchell tries to clear up a few misconceptions about Jesus, including a very big one—why did Jesus have to die? And what he has to say may surprise you, as he pokes holes in notions that many Christians take as fact. Mitchell is an expert in his field, having translated some of the world’s great religious texts. His version of the classic Chinese book the Tao Te Ching has sold... Read more
It’s the holiday season. Time for the lights and warm glow of Christmas, the joy of family gatherings, the celebration marking the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. Plus, to bring the mood down a small notch, it’s also a time for New Year’s resolutions. In years’ past, each member of my family has made a list of three New Year’s resolutions on January 1. There have been resolutions that have been easy to pull... Read more
It’s the Christmas season, the time of the year when we engage in cherished family traditions. Baking holiday cookies. Hanging stockings by the fireplace. Unwinding with a glass of spiced eggnog. Well, in the Rapsas family, we have another unique tradition that started many years ago. Lighting up the plastic baby Jesus. I am a runner and four or five days a week, in the dim early hours of morning, I jog around town. My path seldom varies. I stay... Read more
How would you view the world if you knew that everything was a manifestation of God? If you could see God in all people and all things this holiday season, might it change the way you viewed those you encountered, and the experiences you had? My first exposure to religion was through the Catholic church. I attended weekly catechism classes through the 7th grade and Sunday services until I was about 17. My perception of God was much like that... Read more
Are you becoming more and more aware of your advancing age? Ever wonder if you’re making the most of your life? Or do you fear that something integral may be missing? If you can relate to these questions, then Thomas Moore’s book Ageless Soul is required reading. As you may know, Moore has written for decades on various facets of the soul and in this book turned his attention to how aging impacts this deepest part of our selves. He reminds us that... Read more
What if you trusted the flow of life enough to completely let go? What if you stopped making decisions and began saying yes to whatever life brought your way? Would life unfold the way it was supposed to—instead of the way you forced it to happen? These are the type of questions that led Michael A. Singer to try something he called The Surrender Experiment. It’s the title of a book he wrote several years ago that details the amazing twists... Read more
The question at the top of the page comes from Arthur C. Brooks, author of the recent book From Strength to Strength, Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. It’s something Brooks asks his students at the Harvard Business School to get their attention. He goes on to say: When I tell my graduate students, who are mostly in their late 20s, to contemplate the fact that they have 50 or 60 Thanksgivings left, and... Read more
Elsa Barker was an accomplished author in the early-1900’s when in 1913, something extraordinary happened. She began hearing the voice of a friend, the Judge David Patterson Hatch in her head. Barker was unaware of it at the time, but Hatch had just passed away—and had begun speaking with her from “heaven.” The voice startled Barker but she began dutifully jotting down what she heard. It turned out to be a compelling first-hand report of what happened to Judge Hatch... Read more
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