The house is already on fire, so we might as well warm ourselves. ~anonymous I can’t recall where I read this, but it was at just the moment when I was feeling the most upset and down in my life. And as soon as I read it, I had the longest and heartiest laugh I’d…
Re-learning to Listen
Have you ever sat at a dinner with a friend or loved one and felt awkward when no one was talking or you didn’t have the television on? Have you felt uneasy without having some sort of sound in your house – white noise, music, television – when you are home alone or trying to…
On Walking
In my teenage years I walked miles upon miles in fields of corn for my summer job: detasseling. It involves going through a corn field and removing the tassel from a stalk of corn, thereby ensuring that it is pollenated by another corn plant (having left a row un-detasseled) which drastically increases the yield during…
There was a time when you had everything you needed
There was a time when you didn’t have problems. A time when you weren’t depressed or stressed about your relationships or job. There was a time when a mortgage wasn’t weighing down your finances. There was a time when you didn’t have a job that causes you stress and unhappiness. There was a time when…
Join a Choir
If you’ve had the experience of singing in a choir you will know the unspeakable feeling it can fill you with. Joining together in song is, and always will be, an experience that allows me to feel love in a way that no other experience can. You might compare it to the moment you reach…
Stop being so surprised when someone does something stupid
Sensationalizing the idiocy of someone’s actions is a central cause of our anger, fear and anxiety. We sensationalize things by saying things like: “How could this happen to me?” “Why would she do that?” “What an idiot! How stupid can you be?” “Look at what happened to ME!” We seem to be forgetting something very…
Imagine a time when chocolate never existed…
Imagine a time when chocolate never existed. Such a time has existed, perhaps not in your lifetime, but in lifetimes past. Perhaps you’re sad now. Or perhaps you don’t care. Or perhaps you are thinking about closing this blog post because you’re completely lost now and your life no longer has direction. A life without…
How do you make time slow down?
Recently, I’ve experienced time slowing down. Days can feel like weeks and weeks like months. And the one thing we all wish we had more of is time. So what’s the secret? … a few hypothesis, things that I do (that I didn’t do much before) that might be causing me to have “more time.” Engage…
The Big Billy Goat didn’t go first because…
After my blog post last week asking the question “Why didn’t the Big Billy Goat just go first over the bridge?”, I spent some time asking that question from a storytelling perspective. Well, the answer is quite simple – it wouldn’t have been a very compelling story had the Big Billy Goat gone first! There wouldn’t…
Why didn’t the Big Billy Goat Gruff just go first?
“Who’s that crossing over my bridge?” This past week as I was leading an instrumental play-along with 3-year olds to the tale of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff”, I had an epiphany (or maybe more like a realization that I’m trying to make sound more important). Why didn’t the big Billy Goat Gruff go first…
“You are more than what you’ve become”
You are more than what you’ve become. -Mufasa, The Lion King What is your “more”? What are those things that you wish you could do or become? What if Jesus had been the type of person who wanted more of the same? Well, to be blunt, Christianity wouldn’t exist. Nor would Islam. Nor would democracy,…
Silence Fear, or is it, Fear Silence?
At dinner time it is common to watch a television show. For me growing up it was “The Wheel of Fortune.” And even now when I go back to my childhood home we’ll put it on in the background and try and solve the puzzles along with the contestants. I almost get a nostalgic feeling…
Rejected Cornerstone 