Steve Jobs said ” Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.” So true. Most of us are far too comfortable with mediocrity or “that’s good enough.” Because of this, we get a life that never is pressed to discover its potential, the possibilities. What a waste.
This…
Today marks the start of a new Church Year on the Orthodox calendar, and, like all New Year's celebrations, this offers us a moment to reflect and reorient our actions and our attitudes to a more peaceful life.
And in the midst of this chaotic age of "us vs. them" and "Red vs. Blue" and "Right…
I was watching a well-known leadership teacher speak recently (I like to keep up with this world since I find this both helpful and cautionary) and he was commenting about the necessity of making decisions to change. And he used some commonly heard excuses about why someone doesn't live up to their potential: "I am…
Unity is a concept that is as old as humanity. It permeates the stories of history, the attaining of unity, the betrayal of unity, and the loss of unity. American money has this motto printed on each bill “E Pluribus Unum” – Out of the Many One. Sadly, our motto seems to be a faraway…
I knew a man once who loved to hear sermons about fire and brimstone. He was himself, an indulgent man who wasted his life on behaviors that we should not talk about in polite company. And yet, every year he went to the annual "revival meetings" at a church he had gone to in his…
Winston Churchill once said "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime, in your life."
I'm not sure I trust the convictions of a man with no enemies. Let me explain. To have deep convictions means not abandoning those convictions even when they are not popular. And when you do that, you…
It's amazing how quick folks get upset if they feel like they are being bossed around. I had a couple come to see me once about how to raise their child and they informed me they had decided to not say anything about God to the child so that he could make up his mind…
Queen Elizabeth once said, "Grief is the price we pay for love." And that is true, in part, but not the whole picture. In fact, I'm convinced in our modern world of therapy and "positive thinking" we run the risk of falling into the false notion that we should never "feel" bad or sad. And…
It shouldn't be surprising to any of us. How we think, what we think, when we think, and when we don't think, shapes our choices, our priorities, and our actions. It seems that this observation is self-evident, and yet I have to confess that I haven't really examined how and what I think nearly as…
C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, writes: It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else…