Faith & Life Inspirational Message

One of the people I have enjoyed reading over the years has been Thomas Moore. I first became aware of him when I bought and read his best seller, Care of the Soul .  That book was published in 1992 and I must have read it soon after it came out.  In fact, that book inspired me to begin a group I called “Soul Work,” probably sometime in the mid 90s.  Interestingly, I still lead a group by that name even today.      Moore is just a little older than I am.  He has traveled a different spiritual path than I have, which is what makes him valuable as my teacher (although I have never met him).  He had an interesting pilgrimage as a monk, psychotherapist and university professor.  Paradoxically, it was his denial of tenure that launched him into his popular writing career that will leave him with a legacy much bigger and different than had he continued as a college professor.      After reading his first book, I have read o...

I have been re-reading some of Thomas Merton’s journals in order to write a paper I promised I would write.  As a Trappist monk, Merton had a fairly rigorous daily schedule.  The monastery in Kentucky where he resided had the monks showing up for their first worship of the day at 3:15am.  This was the first of seven times they would show up.  Some of the times were rather brief---fifteen minutes or so.  But they still showed up.  Besides that, every monk had a particular job or responsibility.     Among other things, Merton was assigned to teaches the novices.  A novice is a person who has just entered the monastery.  A significant aspect of the novice life is spiritual formation.  Basically, you have to live the monastic life long enough to get an idea whether you wanted to make a lifetime commitment.  And you would need to learn some history and other basics of monastic life.  In monastic language, you needed to be ...

I have been privileged to be able to see myself as a leader.  I do bring some native talent to the leadership opportunities I have had, but I also have had a helping hand offered by many different people at a number of junctions in my life.  I have had many good leadership models to help me get clear about what leadership style fits my personality and my own Quaker convictions.  I also have watched some leaders whom I thought were not very good and were more of a negative model.  They showed me ways I never wanted to be seen as a leader.     I remember getting some leadership opportunities as early as elementary school.  In the bigger scheme of things, these were miniscule leadership chances.  However, they gave me an early chance to practice being a leader.  Much to my surprise, some other kids followed my lead!  I guess you are a leader if someone follows you.     As I grew, so did some of my leadership opportun...

I normally don’t use videos or even PowerPoint to do presentations.  I hope it is not simply because I am old-fashioned.  I know their use is almost universal now.  I am willing to use them when I think they are appropriate or add value.  And since that is a subjective judgment, I am sure others we see appropriateness and value much quicker than I do.  That said, I recently made a presentation to a group where I did use a little video.     The topic of the presentation was trust.  I suspect most folks underestimate the significance of trust when you think about teams, co-operation and so forth.  Simply put, when trust is low or missing, things will not go well.  As our new book, Exception to the Rule , demonstrates, you certainly don’t get high performance when trust is lacking.  Trust is foundational.  And I would add, when I talk about trust, I am also talking about faith.  For me faith and trust are virtually synon...

The title for this inspirational piece comes from a book of a friend of mine.  John Punshon was a British Quaker---now deceased.  John was a good friend of mine.  I first met John when I went to England for a sabbatical.  I was a Fellow at a Quaker study center in Birmingham.  The study center was much like a little college.  It offered courses that were honored by the University of Birmingham.  The range of course offerings was limited, but what was taught was really first-rate.  The Quaker Tutor was my friend John.    John was a little guy in stature.  But he was a big-hearted guy.  He had not grown up a Quaker, so when he decided Quakerism was for him, he dove into it with gusto.  He was not a pain, like some converts can be, but he was clear and strong in his beliefs.  He was a very principled man and that fit very well his version of Quakerism.  He lived out his concerns for justice.  He worked for peac...

I don’t claim to have much in common with religious sisters, as the Catholic Church calls them.  I am not quite sure when I met my first nun or member of a religious order.  Growing up in the part of rural Indiana from whence I came does not readily provide that opportunity.  I am sure I at least saw a nun when I went to larger cities, like Indianapolis or Cincinnati, but nothing in my memory stands out.  Even college days in North Carolina at a Quaker-affiliated college ensured that I had little to no connection with them.     No doubt, it was in graduate school in the Boston area.  I actually had some young women in class with me who were members of a Catholic order.  They were a blessing.  They were mostly smarter than I was.  They were kinder than I usually am.  They were instruments of grace.  But they never struck me as pious in that stylized sense that the word, piety, often suggests.  They were really people--...

I have been interested in friendships since I was pretty young.  I suspect that everyone is interested in friendships, although many folks may not give it sustained thought like I have.  When I was in my early school years, friendships were perhaps the most important thing about school.  Of course, the preferred answer would have been to say learning was the most important thing.  But I figured if you were in school, you would naturally learn.  But friendships are not a guarantee.     All we have to think about is the prevalence of bullying.  That still makes headlines in unfortunate ways.  I don’t want to paint an unrealistic picture of friendship.  Making friends is not always easy---maybe it is never easy.  I say this particularly after having studied and, even, taught a class on friendship.  What I am sure is too many people have a very loose definition of friendship.  When I first meet someone and then announce I...

Too often spirituality, and religion for that matter, is portrayed as the antidote to sadness, sickness and sundry other less than desirable aspects of life.  Of course, no one told me explicitly that was the case, but it is true this was the implication I took from my young days.  The implication was the truly religious or spiritual never would suffer from being sick, from being sad or other human maladies.  When I was young, I guess I thought religion was a kind of inoculation shot against human problems.     Now that I am older (but questionably wiser!), I don’t think this is true at all.  Religious and spiritual folks get sick just like normal people.  We have bouts of sadness just like all humans.  And we are not immune from any of the other maladies that afflict the human race.  In fact, I would argue to be human is to be a sitting duck for sadness, sickness and sundry other aspects of life.  That just seems to be the realit...

Occasionally you see something or hear something that is instantly funny.  Sometimes it is the context or lack of a context that causes the laugh.  One such thing happened to me today.  I was innocently heading into a building for my next stop of the day.  As I walked by a set of doors, I noticed a sign posted on the window.  As I read it, I immediately broke into laughter.     The sign read: “Insanity is cancelled; Resumes next week!  I suppose for those who know more than I do, the sign makes perfect sense.  It was clear to me that since I did not have the right context, the sign was simply funny.  I did not know that insanity went on in that building!  And if insanity were happening, why would they want to cancel it?  Clearly, I was missing something.     Of course, I know “insanity” means sick---usually mentally sick. In Latin sanus means health, soundness and sane.  The “in” on the front of san...

The title of this inspirational piece may seem odd.  When in doubt, we should wait.  That does not seem like the American way.  I think Americans tend to be more pushy.  When in doubt, push ahead.  Force things!  Make things happen!  You can do it!  There are many ways we express the fact that we should seldom wait---for anything.  We pride ourselves that we lived in a fast-paced fashion.  “Get yours while the getting is good,” is a phrase I heard all my life.  The implication was you had to be quick, perhaps a bit grabby, and certainly never dally.  Slow people are losing people.     There may be times the above-mentioned perspective serves us well as people and as a nation.  But spiritually speaking, that is usually not a good way to go.  However, I believe that we often carry our lives-as-normal into our spiritual lives.  That should not be surprising.  Why would we expect ourselves to be...

My daughter recently had a baby.  In this case it is good news.  The baby is very lucky compared to other babies around the world who were born on the same day.  This baby is wanted.  Not all babies are.  This baby will get the advantage, not only of parents who care about it and will love him, but parents who have enough money to provide good food, shelter and all the rest.  Not all babies will have that deal.  My grandson will also be advantaged in that genetically he probably is above average intellectually and will have the additional advantage of good schools.  Effectively, the kid has it made and doesn’t know it!     But all this is not predestination.  My grandson can still blow it.  He can grow up and not take advantage of his advantages.  He can squander this treasure of possibility.  He can be irresponsible.  And his more disadvantaged counterparts may well rise above what you might have expected....

Recently I led a retreat which was focused on Thomas Merton’s magisterial poem, Hagia Sophia.  Hagia Sophia translates “holy wisdom.”  The whole poem is a look at the presence and function of Sophia---Wisdom.  In doing this Merton is dipping into an old aspect of the Christian tradition that is rooted in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).  Wisdom is often characterized as the feminine aspect of God.      When we become aware of Merton’s influences, one significant group of scholars he was reading in the 1950’s were Russian Orthodox writers.  Orthodoxy, more than Roman Catholicism and Protestants, valued the Wisdom tradition found within Christianity.  These Russian Christian scholars often found themselves living in turbulent times in the early 20th century when the Russian revolution brought to power an atheistic government.  Many were exiled or forced out of the country.  But they have provided a valuable way to view God, the ...

I stopped by one of my favorite places to get something to eat.  It was supposed to be a quick in and out, so that I could head home to do some work.  Sometimes I will go there for a little social time.  The people who hang out there are so very different from me.  At one level, we share almost no common interests, except perhaps an interest in sports.  While I like sports, they certainly are not a very high priority in my life.      I know the owner of the place pretty well, although I would only call him a friend in a very loose sense of that word.  So I was sitting on a chair, waiting for some food to arrive.  The owner came to me and greeted me.  It was nice to see him, for it had been a pretty long time since we had seen each other.  I was genuinely glad to see and greet him.     I am sure he makes it a high priority to befriend all the people who come into his place.  In the business world tha...

​One of the most remarkable people within the history of the Christian church is a medieval woman, of whom most people never heard.  Hildegard of Bingen is her name.  Bingen is the place in Germany where she was a Benedictine nun.  Hildegard lived through most of the 12th century.  She was the abbess of her convent, among other things.  She was a mystic, a visionary, a scientist and the list goes on.  ​I would like to share a few lines from her writings to demonstrate how this woman is so remarkable.  I begin with one of my favorites.  Hildegard tells us, “Don’t let yourself forget that God’s grace rewards not only those who slip, but also those who bend and fall.  So sing!  The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts.  It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them.  Singing summons the Holy Spirit.  Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord.  Don’t stop singing....

I am often grateful for the education I have been privileged to receive.  I went much further in school than I ever thought I would.  Neither of my parents were college people, so simply going to college charted new territory for my family.  Obviously, there are many, many first-generation college students---even in our own day.  And that is a good thing.      Perhaps I was a little unusual in that I did not go to college to get a career.  I thought I probably would return to the farm and make my living that way.  But I also realized making a living and making a life were not the same thing.  Making a living has to do with earning enough money to be able to pay the bills and afford a family, assuming that would come along.  But making a life is related to meaning and purpose.  It is easy to make a living and living a meaningless life.  That is sad.  I did not want to be sad like that, so off to college I went. ...

Recently I was talking to a large gathering of incoming first year college students who were on campus for an orientation.  Relatively speaking, I am so old, there is no way I can claim to know how they were feeling or what they were thinking.  Of course, I could operate with the illusion that I have a clue.  But when you think about how they have grown into the late teens that they are, there is no way I can know.      Many of them probably have had cell phones since they were eight years old!  And they never knew a world without Facebook or even Twitter.  A first-year college student was one-year old when the twin towers of 9/11 were struck by the airplanes.  Obama is the first real president they can remember!  And so it goes.      And yet, as they prepare to begin college, it is a new chapter in their lives.  Many have been very successful in high school, but now they start all over.  That is the na...

When some people see this title, they probably assume I am going to talk about some special call to the ministry.  For sure, this is often the language of priests and others who do feel a special call into some form of ministry.  I don’t minimize that, but I have a different kind of call in mind.  I have in mind something as simple as a phone call.     Although people may not talk on the phone as much as a few years ago, there is still a great deal of conversation that goes over the phone waves.  Email and texting have not totally replaced actually hearing a human voice on the other end of the phone call.  As I pondered the matter, I quickly realized not all phone calls are equal.  And I have created a little way to distinguish between two different kinds of phone calls.     In order to distinguish two different kinds, I appeal to the grammatical part of speech called an article.  I had a good English teacher who actua...

I am re-reading a book to prepare for some presentations I have to make.  The book by Timothy M. Gallagher is about discernment.  It is entitled, The Discernment of Spirits .  I first read the book some time ago in preparation for writing an article comparing Ignatian (as in Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits) spiritual direction and my own Quaker tradition of spiritual direction.  That was a fun article to write because, once again, Quakers don’t always use traditional language---spiritual direction, for example.  But Quakers usually have some form for the same experience.      Exercises like this has made it easy for me to be ecumenical.  Long ago I appreciated the fact that denominations may be useful, but they certainly are not the last word.  While it is easy for me to identify as a Quaker, I am first a Christian---or maybe even better, a spiritual person who happens to be Christian.  That enables me to be open...