As a child I attended weekly religious education classes and Catholic mass at least once a week. It was rare when I actually paid attention to what happened because it was repetitious and became mundane instead of inspiring. However, I now have a foundational knowledge of the bible and recall many prayers and verses with ease, for…
Tread Lightly through Life
A walk in the woods is a good reminder of the fragility and vitality of life. Under every leaf and stone is decay and new life. You witness vibrant colors and contours amongst the branches, grass, and creatures. Then you discover, not only do these things remind you of all manner of insights, you are…
Living in Simplicity
How do we activate a life that removes unnecessary complications? How do we move through our day without being triggered by any random set of circumstances? How do we lead a life of simplicity (not laziness) where our focus is wholly set on our passion or task? First, I would say that most people DON’T…
Walking Space
In the summer of 2015 I walked the Camino de Santiago, walking 500 miles in 28 days. Midway through that walk I envisioned (with a possessed-like quality) a place, not unlike the Camino, in North America where people would gather, walk, and re-sync their hectic lives with nature and fellow walkers. For me, long-distance, multi-day,…
“God works in Mysterious Ways” is Fake News
The church would like us to think that God is a mysterious, unreachable, unknowable being. What makes God mysterious is our blindness and unwillingness to accept the Truth and our resistance to change and to see reality as it really is, the positive and negative and everything in between. Like love, there is nothing so…
DIY Self-Improvement
We are always at a precipice. One move away from greatness, obliteration, or stagnation. We search for answers and we seek and seek but few ever seem to find. The problem with seeking, most of the time, is that we want to be given the answer. But the answer is different for each person, even…
Why do we talk about the weather so much?
Conversation after conversation seems to be entirely about weather. It is a required topic to discuss. The weather takes up about a third of most newscasts. It is unceasing. It is interesting. It is boring. Why the obsession? Because it is always changing. It’s the “in the moment” way of weather that makes it interesting to speak…
My “someday” has arrived
“Someday I’m going to do what I want and not what everyone else wants.” “Someday I’m going to resign from my job and travel.” “Someday I am going to start something that only I am meant to reveal to the world.” “Someday I’m going to learn another language.” That someday is today. This week I…
WWJD
WWJD? Remember this? When I was in school people would wear bracelets that had the WWJD acronym written on it. For those who don’t know what it stands for, it means “What Would Jesus Do?” I never wore one. It wasn’t because I wouldn’t, I just have an aversion to doing things that everyone was…
You don’t deserve anything
Think of a forest. All of the trees, bushes, insects, birds, deer, fox, owls, microbial bacteria, mushrooms, mold, moss. The diversity in one square mile of forest is enough to give a scientist a lifetime of discovery and they still wouldn’t have discovered in all. Nature doesn’t act out of a desire to achieve, destroy…
Stop treating life like a dress rehearsal
We have a tendency to procrastinate. We love making New Years resolutions but hardly anyone keeps them. We say we are going to start a business or write a novel but so few of us actually do. We treat life like a dress rehearsal – like we will get another chance. As if we can…
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven
Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew 5:3 It has taken me a long time to understand this verse clearly – don’t know why it has taken me so long. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has always been difficult for me to understand. I was taking it too…
The Cave in the Allegory is finished being built
The Allegory of the Cave (do read it if you haven’t before!), written by Plato around 2,400 years ago, tells of a cave where people are chained and captured from childhood. They are restrained in such a way that the only thing they can see are the shadows on the wall in front of them created…
Rejected Cornerstone 