"Well, you should have known better!" Oh how I hated hearing that from my mom. It was the tone in her voice as well as the words. You know the one. The tone that communicated disappointment, disapproval, AND frustration all at the same time! Oh, I HATED it! But what made things worse was she…
Life is simple.
It is. Life is not complicated. Life is not hard to figure out. I know, amazing statements given the complexities of our daily lives, but it is true. Notice I didn't claim life was easy! And that, dear one, is the difference. But it amazes me how much I complicate life, my life.…
It never ceases to amaze me when I succumb to fears that flow from a forgetful faith. It seems a week doesn't pass (or sometimes even a day) when I am either mindlessly faithless or I have reduced my faith to mere "decoration."
But that is easy to do in a world where serious devotion is…
Listen to this quote from St. Symeon the New Theologian: "In the future life the Christian is not examined if he has renounced the whole world for Christ's love, or if he has distributed his riches to the poor or if he fasted or kept vigil or prayed, or if he wept and lamented for…
We moderns love systems. What I mean is we read all the time about "10 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism," "4 Steps to a New You!," "8 Days to a Clean House!," and so on. We simply can't resist clicking on those links to read those stories. We seem desperate to find the right "system"…
What is it about close relationships that either blind you or enlighten you? What I mean is, I've known folks who were so close to someone else that they were absolutely blind to that other person's faults. I've seen it get so bad that the two people were so enmeshed with each other that they…
"I'm offended!" It seems that is a common complaint in our day. When did we become such a generation of "fragile little snowflakes" that the slightest challenge sends us into fits of offense and demands for regress?
So, what do you think is behind this age of easy offense? I certainly have my own thoughts,…
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." The quote has been described as an Arabic proverb, but more likely it comes from advice given in India by a leader who died under mysterious circumstances.
This attitude that my enemy's enemy is my ally has been used countless times in politics and warfare to justify the…
A quote attributed to Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, sums up our challenges with missing the point: "I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
The truth is, with all the ways we…
Science struggles with paradox. In fact, our whole Western philosophy since the Enlightenment (so-called) has fought against the very idea of paradox. We want things in our world neat and in order. We want to be able to predict how our world will behave, and we want, above all, to feel safe! And yet...
Take light…