Faith & Life Inspirational Message

One of my favorite authors, the late monk, Thomas Merton, had a great answer to the person who asked him what he wanted to be?   Merton responded, “I want to be a saint.”   The first time I read that line, I sat back with the exclamation, “Whoa!”   That is an audacious aspiration.   I can’t imagine telling someone I want to be a saint.   Perhaps, the real reason I would never tell someone that I want to be a saint is the fact that I really don’t want to be a saint!             It is probably true that Merton and I don’t really mean the same thing when we say, “saint.”   Since I did not grow up Roman Catholic, I never had anything to do with saints.   Occasionally, the authors of the New Testament were called saints.   Reference would be made to St. John or St. Paul.   Since these guys wrote what we now call “Scripture,” there was no way I would have aspirations equal to them. ...

With a title like this one, you might expect this to be a reflection by someone who has just survived a near-death experience.   It could be one who escaped from a nasty car accident or a near-miss airplane landing.   Lucky to be alive sounds like the relieved words of someone who stood in front of death’s door and turned around to walk away.   “Praise the Lord,” we expect to hear them mutter. But my reflections have nothing of the drama suggested in the first paragraph.   I have not had a near-death experience.   I have certainly thought about dying and being dead, as I suppose is natural for anyone my age.   I have fortunately never been in a nasty car accident.   I have had some scary enough (for me) plane takeoffs and landings, but nothing that was disastrous.   So I guess I have lived a fairly eventful, normal---maybe---boring life.             That does not mean I cannot feel lu...

Although the title for this inspirational reflection comes from inside the text of a small article I read online, it was the title of that online article that lured me into reading.   I routinely read quite a few religious and spiritual websites just so I can be more aware of what’s going on in the world.   And it is literally in the world.   Once upon a time, you were current if you knew what was going on in your city or state.   Really “with it” people had a good national awareness.   When I was growing up, I don’t think I knew anyone who had been abroad.   In those days on the Indiana farm, to go to New York City or DC was tantamount to going abroad!             With the internet things have changed.   The world is as near as the click of the mouse.   So I try to follow the global news, particularly in the spiritual sense.   If I am dealing with students in my class who may live til...

The title of this spiritual reflection is a direct theft!   It is the title of a wildly popular class at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA.   Stanford is one of the highest quality colleges in the world---an elite school which sometimes must seem like that for the elite.   It is one of those places which almost never elicits the response, “Where’s that?”   And if you went there, you would never be asked, “Is that a good school!”                I found out about the course at Stanford from a tweet on some site I follow on Twitter.   The article that described the course was fairly long---certainly for a tweet.   Some of the material covered was interesting to me, but not really pertinent to this inspirational reflection.   But one focus I found fascinating and, in some ways, see it to be suggestive of the spiritual journey.   I would like deal with that focus.    ...

For a fairly long time in my professional life I have been interested in contemplation.   As I so often comment, “contemplation” is not a word I heard while growing up as a young Quaker in Indiana.   I am confident I was not paying attention.   I don’t think Quakers I knew were using that word, “contemplation.”   So if I had been asked about it, I would have offered a blank stare.             I am sure I heard about the word, “contemplation,” while I was in school.   I may have heard of it in college, but more likely I first heard about it in graduate school.   I can guess I encountered it first in some kind of history of Christianity class.   Because Quakerism dates from the 17 th century, we have a bad habit of skipping from Jesus to the 17 th century.   I knew almost nothing about the sixteen hundred years between Jesus and the origins of my tradition.   Quite a bit happened durin...

I participate in some forms of social media, although I have not yet become a Facebook follower.   That clearly means I am not all in!   But I do think there is a role for social media.   One of the roles I see for myself is social media provides one more outlet for me to share some spiritual nuggets that students, especially, would not get.   That may sound arrogant, but there are quite a few folks from my university that read the thing just because I am writing it.   The numbers are not huge, but Jesus only managed a few followers!   I am in good company.             The other thing that participating in social media affords is a chance to keep thinking about life and how to make the most sense out of it.   I grant that so much of the stuff that appears via social media---Facebook, Twitter and the rest---is not profound in any sense.   Much of it is technological chitchat.   I am not...

Sometimes when I am outside, it hits me how majestic and wonderful nature can be.   Since I grew up in rural Indiana, I have always known this to be the case.   However, we live much more insulated lives than people did when I was a little boy.   We live in controlled environments much of the time.   We use air conditioning to keep it cooler in the summer and, then, turn on the heat to keep the rooms warm during the winter months.   I am not complaining and am not suggesting we go back to the good old days! But I do think living life in an insulated way leads more of us to live more unaware.   Because our environments are controlled, we shape our reality as much as it shapes us.   This does not make us crazy, but it does allow us to live in a kind of illusion.   When it is nearly one hundred degrees on a summer day, it probably is a comfortable seventy-two degrees inside.   We have little awareness of the reality of nature.   And we n...

The title for this inspirational piece came with some words in a sentence I was reading somewhere.   They were not part of a quotation and I know for certain I am taking these words in a direction that was not intended by the author, whom I cannot remember.   All I can recall is the piece I was reading was not even about the spiritual life.   So I can be certain the author would be very surprised if he or she could see what I am about to do with this phrase: the value of the interior life.             I like this phrase because I believe it is true.   In fact, I think it is so true that I would claim no one can be happy or satisfied long-term without having some kind of interior life.   That would be its value.   Behind this claim lurks the initial question: just what is the interior life?             Doubtlessly, there are multiple answers to...

When we hear the phrase, “do over,” it probably conjures up some kind of mistake that we hope to rectify.   That happens to me often when I play golf.   I’ll hit a shot that goes astray and very much want a do over!   I am sure we can think of any number of times in our lives when we did something and either got a do over---or wished we could have one.   So it is not unusual to associate that phrase with negativity. While that may be typical, it does not always have to be the case.   A do over can be anything we did once and, for whatever reason, we want to do it again.   I can think of many instances in which I sincerely wanted a do over.   Who would not want a do over of a very pleasant experience or a very positive outcome? This came to my mind recently when I was gathering some information for a public presentation I have to make in a few weeks.   The topic given to me made me think of a book I read a few years ago.   The book b...

Sometimes in the evening when I sit down to write another one of these inspirational reflections, I wonder, does anyone “out there” read these things?   Fortunately I do not know how many people read them, although I know some do.   I also know that this has become an important part of my own spiritual discipline.   Of course, there are some days when I really don’t want to do a reflection, but I know right now it is a good discipline for my soul.               For one thing since I write every night, it means I need a modicum of awareness as I go through my day in order to “catch” something in life, which is worthy of spiritual reflection.   When I catch such a moment, then it is important to pay attention.   I realize how easy it is to go through the motions of living.   Even though I interact a great deal with people, it is still too easy to give rote answers and not really engage and exc...

I have often commented that the key to a discipline such as writing one of these daily inspirational reflections is to pay attention.   That sounds so simple---and it is---but it is not always easy.   I am always amazed by how easy it is for me to go through my life on autopilot.   Having a number of routines in my life makes autopilot very easy.   Like many people, I’m sure, my daily routine does not vary much.   Coffee and newspaper in the morning.   Meals are about the same time.   I tend to see the same people on a regular basis.   There is nothing wrong with any of this, but it does make living on autopilot very easy. I like variation and variety.   And I do have some of that in my life.   And I know that it is much easier to pay attention to things when I am engaged in something different.   For example, when I drive the same route day after day, it does not call for much attentiveness to get from point A to B.   But i...