Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Somewhere I once read a sentence containing the phrase, hunger for hope.  Immediately that phrase spoke to me and still does.  I have no clue who wrote it or where I read it.  I have been giving some thought to the way human beings hope.  I recognize hope can be a noun---we usually say we “have” hope---and it can be a verb.  Obviously, they are related, but if I had to choose, I am really more interested in verbs.  I am fascinated by how humans hope.   ​It does not take long in research to recognize how complex and convoluted talking about hope has been through the centuries.  I suspect it seems simple to those of us who hope and have hopes.  But I doubt very many people can tell you how they create hope and what to decide to hope for.  Indeed, some folks don’t have any more hope.  We know this as despair.  And clearly, folks who feel depressed don’t feel too much hope in the moment.   ​Hope can be very personal.  You and I may be in the same situation and, yet, we hope for di

There are some authors I know I will take away something significant every time I read them.  Most of them do not come from the same tradition as I do.  Indeed, some of the most profound thinkers who offer me jewels of wisdom do not even come from the Christian tradition.  I know that might bother some folks, but for me it is a gift.  Actually, I think it is pretty cute of God to use a Buddhist or Hindu to teach me something about wisdom, truth, and meaning in life.  When I am given a gift, I say “thanks” regardless of the source or giver. Abraham Joshua Heschel is one of those writers who I know will always deliver memorable lines.  When I read him, I know that I am engaging a man who lived very deeply the life God gave to him.  He is now dead, but his life lives on in his words.  Those words keep on giving. One of my favorite books of his is entitled, Quest for God .  It originally appeared in the mid-50s and was first called, Man’s Quest for God .  I like the fact that the re-is

For some time, I have wondered about the relationship of hope and expectation.  I have given quite a bit of thought to the theme of hope.  I have been asked to speak about it.  I have a Hope chapter in a couple books I have written.  It is enough to dupe some folks into thinking I am a hope expert and I still feel like a rookie!  I am not even sure I do hope very well for myself. ​Expectations are the kind of things everyone has had.  Even the person in absolute despair probably has expectations, namely, there is no hope.  Somehow I don’t think expectations are the same thing as hopes.  But I am not ready to publish a book on it.  Then I read a book.  The book is by a New Zealander, Ceri Evans, who is a psychiatrist.  He has researched in the area of high performance.  What makes an individual or team capable of high performance?  He entitled the book, Perform Under Pressure. ​I was delighted when I found three or four pages in that book that dealt with expectation.  Evans gav

​Memorial Day---or better, yet, Memorial Day weekend---is a complex holiday.  That does not make it anything less than other major holidays; it is just different.  It seems that the federal holiday has its origins right after the Civil War.  It was an opportunity to remember those Union soldiers who had died in that cause.  Gradually, the “remembering” expanded to include all the men and women who had died in the service of their country. ​Earlier it often was called Decoration Day.  I heard this term most of the time when I was growing up in rural Indiana.  I understood it as the time when the old people went to the cemeteries to “decorate” with flowers the graves of their family and friends.  I knew it had some military association, but by my lifetime, the holiday again had expanded to include everyone who had already passed away.  But it was more complex than that. ​For many people Memorial Day celebrates the beginning of summer.  That association with summer helps if it hi

Recently, I have had the opportunity to work my way again through Viktor Frankl’s famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning .  Frankl was a psychotherapist, but more importantly, he was a Nazi concentration camp survivor.  He spent some time in Auschwitz, one of the better-known camps. When Frankl went to the camp, there would have been little reason to hope he might come out alive.  His book represents a journal of sorts, which he later publishes in 1946 in German.   ​ Frankl lived in Vienna until his death in 1997.  I never even came close to meeting him, but certainly he would be one of the figures in history I would love to have met.  We are fortunate to have these memories and for them to inform the kind of psychological work he did for another fifty years after walking away from that horrific experience.  For a book published that long ago, it has remarkable relevance to people living in our own days.  So it is worth taking a look at some of his ideas. ​ Early on in the book

Recently, I have had the occasion to re-read one of my all-time favorite books, A Testament of Devotion , by Thomas Kelly.  This Quaker classic was published originally in 1941 right in the midst of a raging world war.  Clearly, Kelly had been affected by the atrocity of another world war.  Kelly had spent time in pre-war Germany.  He spoke German.  He had many German friends.  Surely, his heart broke when the potential of peace and good will was displaced by the actuality of bullets and bombs. From the perspective of the twenty first century, we know that humankind still has not learned to live in peace.  There are still conflicts raging in too many different parts of our world.  Sadly, these are not the only conflicts.  There are also countless inner conflicts raging inside people all around our globe.  Perhaps there are inner conflicts at war inside your best friend…or even inside of you.  These conflicts will not make the six o’clock news.  In fact, many of us are condemned to fi

Of the many themes I have written about over many years now, I am surprised I have never written about complaining.  I have done some complaining in my days and I certainly have heard many complaints from many people.  Sometimes they were complaining about me—but I didn’t hear those.  I just heard about them! And that’s just the nature of complaining.  Most of the time, we don’t do it in the presence of the one about whom we are complaining.  That is what makes it indirect---and usually ineffective.  But more about that in a minute.  The point to be made here is complaining seems to be a universal phenomenon.  I have lived in a couple other countries and I know it happens there, too.  So without scientific research, I am going to assume it happens all over the world.  Maybe the North Koreans have squelched it, but I doubt it! Complaining happens when we feel like something has gone wrong.  Often this means we complain because things did not go the way we wanted it to go.  Sadly, I

Occasionally someone says things that I have thought.  And when that person has a much bigger audience than I do, I am delighted.  This happened recently when I read New York Times’ essayist, David Brooks, in his graduation speech he said he would never give in front of real parents, faculty and graduates.  But it is so good and relevant in my opinion.  And in its own way, pretty spiritual.  That is where Brooks is on his life’s journey. Brooks begins by acknowledging these are indeed strange times.  As such, normal life has been interrupted.  That is true for everyone, but Brooks is speaking to folks who recently graduated.  But I also wonder if, indirectly, he isn’t speaking to all of us, too?  For the graduates, Brooks admits their normal career-tracking, next steps in life have been disrupted.  He tells them, “Don’t see this as a void; see it as a permission slip.”  I smiled, because I could do the same thing.  Things I would habitually do have gone by the way.  I have a permissi

The unfolding into God?  What kind of idea is that, one might ask?  Some might think it makes no sense at all.  I am sure many people think of God and would be quite sure God does not get unfolded!  Towels and shirts might be unfolded, but certainly not God.  I know one person who does think God is unfolded into.  That person would be Pope Francis.  He used this sentence in his papal encyclical, Laudato Si, which was published in 2015.  Its appearance is celebrating an anniversary of sorts.  Laudato Si---“praise be to you my Lord,” translates the opening words of St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle. The Pope wrote this not long after being named the Pope.  The long letter to the church and the world is an admonition to take care of mother earth.  It is an appeal for all humans to make changes in our lives, so that we might make appropriate changes to spare our earth of some of the destructive things we have done in the past.  It is a concern that is still worth our attention. The encyclic

We live in interesting times; it has been quipped so often the phrase seems old-fashioned.  But this current time does seem more than a little interesting.  It is not unusual to hear old-timers claim they have never seen anything like this.  I don’t think it is hyperbole.  It seems true to me.  But I am not an old-timer! It is a time that I think about the virtue of justice.  I have written quite a bit about the virtues, so I know them pretty well.  Often my co-author and I claim that justice is typically the most difficult of the seven virtues we give focus.  Justice sometimes is even difficult to determine.  Is justice a matter of equality?  So many times, I tried to treat my two girls equally.  And we talk about equal opportunity and equal rights.  So there is always reason seriously to consider equality as our measure of justice. But we can also determine justice based on the idea of fairness.  Again, there were times when I tried to be fair to my two girls.  They did not necessari

Recently I read an article with which I had much resonance.  It was an article about spirituality more than religion.  I know sometimes that distinction can be vague, but let’s use these words from Celine Reinoso, writer of the article, to pursue the difference in meaning.  She wrote an attractive essay entitled, “Straying from the church and grounding my faith in nature.”  Her essay is one that I think a huge number of students in my college classes would relate to. Basically her story is a story of pilgrimage---spiritual pilgrimage.  She grew up in a fairly traditional Roman Catholic Church and that tradition is part of her very being.  Clearly to me, she has a desire in her heart for the promise of God and the church.  I can relate to that.  Although I have never been a card-carrying member of the Catholic Church, I feel like I understand it pretty well.  Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, people have quipped.  And at one level, it is true.  Even Catholics will laugh at this in a k

The real spiritual journey is a daily endeavor---day and night.  It is not a weekend thing.  It is not occasional or haphazard.  It is daily walk in the Spirit.  I know it is easy to say that.  It is just as easy to type it so that in print it looks convincing.  But I know it is not that easy in real life---at least not in my real life. On the surface it seems like it should be relatively easy for me.  I teach the stuff!  I can read in spirituality almost any day I choose.  Some days I have to read it in order to teach a particular class for the day.  However in all honesty, it is not any easier for me than any other person.  Just because I teach spirituality does not make me spiritual.  I could teach you about Buddhism, too, but that does not make me a Buddhist.  And teaching something is not the same thing as journeying in that reality. I could teach you about prayer.  We could read a book or two about prayer and pass an examination on the material.  But that does not mean we hav

I have been cleaning out some things in my room.  That always takes more time than I allocate for it.  It is not because I have so much stuff---junk in the eyes of most people.  I do wonder why I kept all of this, but it is not as much as I know other packrats keep.  The problem with cleaning out stuff from long ago is we get trapped in the land of memory.  That is not altogether bad---unless it is a bad memory! I ran across a picture directory of a place I used to work.  It was a great position and I loved doing the work and the people.  A big part of me did not really want to leave that place, but I felt God was nudging me on.  I always hoped I would be obedient and not simply complacent.  So with some reluctance, I moved on to another place, which also has been wonderful.  Guess I have been lucky. The photo directory stopped me in my tracks.  I quickly thought I would toss it.  It was a long time ago.  Some of those folks, no doubt, are deceased.  The place is both the same and sure

It is an idea I had not seriously thought about for a few years.  And now that I am thinking about it, I cannot believe I have let it go for that many years.  The idea is soul mates.  And the best part is one of my students reminded me what I had forgotten!  Bless my students! For a couple of times I have offered a class that focuses on spiritual friendship.  I have had a long-standing interest in that theme, too.  So two years ago I taught a class on spiritual friendship and, now, I have repeated it.  I also ask each student to be in a friendship relationship and to explore whether that friendship relationship also might become a spiritual friendship.  I ask students to keep a weekly journal.  It was in one student’s journal that soul mates came back into my life as an idea. So I re-engaged an important idea.  Immediately, I went to my bookshelf to pull down Thomas Moore’s book entitled, Soul Mates.  The subtitle is instructive: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationships . 

I have become aware that I spend a great deal of time in virtual reality.  In saying this, however, I admit I am not using the term, virtual reality, in its true meaning.  I will explain this in a moment.  First though, many of us know that we are on computers more than probably most of us have been.  Zoom is a word that has entered the vocabulary of so many of my friends who previously would only have used the word to enlarge a picture on their computer!  Now it refers to a business, is a verb and leads to a new syndrome called “zoom fatigue!” Now back the liberty I am taking with the notion of “virtual reality.”  It is a term familiar to many folks.  I have been using it for a few years.  I was not curious enough to explore the earliest use of the word.  If you look up that term, you will find advertisements for stores bearing that name, headsets and more.  I had no idea!  I know I have loosely used the term to describe time on the computer, instead of a walk outside.  I was not surp

Some books are a treasure.  They are the ones to which I return, often many times, for inspiration and to be reminded of what I accept as true for me.  One of these books is by psychiatrist, Roger Walsh, called Essential Spirituality .  I don’t know Walsh, but I wish I did.  I found his book while looking for resources when I first thought about teaching a class in contemplative spirituality.  It is perfect for that, because Walsh offers numerous exercises to help us get started and sustain our contemplative journey.  When students appreciate a book, I know I have a winner. Walsh divides his book into seven essential practices, as he calls them.  One of the practices is called “Awaken Your Spiritual Vision.”  Basically, this is about learning to see in a contemplative way.  Clearly most folks are not blind.  But many of us live our lives in blinded ways.  Even though we see, we don’t really “see.”  This is a spiritual way of talking about living robotically or sleepwalking though our l

Do you want to pray?  That is a very interesting question for me to ponder.  And it is relevant.  I asked the question last evening in a hospital setting.  It was a real question and a serious question.  In the situation the answer was affirmative.  So I prayed.  And it was appreciated.  And the moment was past.  But it is a moment worth giving some attention. Do you want to pray?  That is for some folks a deeply engaging, poignant moment.  It expresses a willingness to open the moment and ourselves to the Divine and to ask that Divinity to come to be present in the moment.  That question is tinged with expectation.  It is pregnant with potentiality.  When you ask to pray, it is a bold request to join another in an adventure of the Spirit.  Do you want to pray?  Of course, for some folks that would be a crazy, comical question.  For the atheist, it is a nonsensical question.  To whom and for what, the atheist might wonder?  If there were no God, to whom would a prayer be addressed?

Occasionally I take time to reflect on the privilege I have to spend time with the traditional college-age students.  When I do, I am always stunned by how lucky I am.  These young folks belong to what is called Gen Z (Generation Z).  It is likely most people my age don’t even know what to call them.  Adults are aware they are Boomers or Millennials, but who knows about the young ones!  Gen Z means they were born in 1996 or later.  No doubt, you smiled when you read that! The younger ones in my classroom were born this century.  This means Bill Clinton was just finishing his presidency when they were born.  Their first memories of a president were George Bush.  One can go on about the culture in which they have grown up.  That is why I don’t pretend I understand that much about them.  Saying that does not mean I am dismissive or discount who they are.  Being like me is not desirable anyway! I feel privileged because they help me see things from a different perspective.  Even if they ar