Faith & Life Inspirational Message

It was while I was reading a really interesting book that I had an insight.   The insight itself is not what I want to give focus.   Instead I became intrigued by the process of getting an insight.   What happened?   How did the process happen?   Was it a matter of luck or is there really something I could do to enhance my chances of getting insights?   Let’s pursue this idea, especially with respect to spiritual insight.             The word, insight, is fairly simple and straightforward.   It is a compound word, “in” and “sight.”   Literally it means to “see within” something.   It means looking “inside” something (it could even be a person).   In that sense we get an “inside look.”   But it also is a little trickier than this.             If we were standing outside a house and peered into a window, we would not say...

It is with some trepidation that I use “spiritual direction” as the title for this inspirational reflection.  It is not that I am against spiritual direction.  In fact, I am very much for it!  I figure most of us would be better off with some spiritual direction.  I know I would.  So what’s my trepidation?  It comes from my Quaker heritage….more about that in a minute.             When you see the term, “spiritual direction,” you could take it in a couple ways.  One way to take the term is to see it literally.  We all know what the word, “direction,” means.  It means north, over there, up there, etc.  Direction points to some space or place.  Direction is someplace besides here.  When we ask for directions, we are asking how to get there.  In the old days we consulted maps.  Maps charted the course we could take to get to a desired place.  Now we use tec...

Who am I?   That is a question almost everyone entertains and, perhaps, spends a good deal of time in life figuring out the answer.   It is not unusual for us to come up with a few different answers in the process of living our lives.   I am confident I would have answered that question differently when I was ten years old than I would today as a relatively mature, older guy.             I know there are some religious traditions that scoff at the idea there is even a real me.   For example, Buddhists question whether there can ever be a self or a real me.   Of course, we can pretend there is one; we can act as if there is one.   In my world of illusion I can have a self-illusion.   I am sure there are some psychologists who do not believe there is such a thing as a real me.   I am hoping they are not correct.             As a Christ...

Most people I know have a home.   I have a nice enough home.   It is not luxurious, but it is more than adequate.   If you were to visit me, you would know that my home has that “lived in” feeling.   It is not the kind of place with dazzle and formality.   I have been in those kinds of homes.   I always feel slightly uncomfortable and on edge.   I hesitate to sit down or touch anything.   Even though I am fairly athletic, in those kinds of situations I temporarily become a klutz! It is pretty commonsense to differentiate house and home.   Many people know the experience of moving into a new house.   In fact, we usually say it precisely that way.   We can buy a house and move into it.   But it takes a while to have the house become a “home.”   That process is likely different for most people.   And the process typically has no time frame.   Some may know how to become “home-makers” much more quickly than the ...

I was in a situation yesterday that provoked my thinking about a variety of fortunes.   I understand most of us never use the word, fortune, in the plural.   We never talk about “fortunes.”   Instead we employ the singular word, “fortune.”   But when I thought about it, I realized there are a variety of fortunes.   Let me explain.            I think it is obvious there are two major ways the word, fortune, is normally used.   Probably the most obvious is to talk about monetary wealth as a fortune.   If I am a billionaire, like Warren Buffet, then appropriately they can be said, “to have a fortune.”   Some people really are stinking rich!   Some executives earn more in a year than most people earn in a lifetime. It does seem absurd to me to think that some people earn multi-millions of dollars annually.   It makes my salary look like chump change!   And I know I have earnings above...

I enjoy finding pithy or great summary statements.   I just found one in my favorite Quaker book.   Thomas Kelly wrote the popular Quaker book, A Testament of Devotion , which actually is a series of lectures.   Some of these come out of his experience of WWII.   Kelly spent some time in Germany watching Hitler come to power.   He returned to this country.   One of the chapters is entitled, “The Eternal Now and Social Concern.”   The core ideas were originally a lecture delivered to a gathering of German Quakers.            The summary statement embodies so much of what I have been taught when growing up as a Quaker.   Kelly writes that the central Quaker message affirms “The possibility of this experience of Divine Presence, as a repeatedly realized and present fact, and its transforming and transfiguring effect upon all life…”   If I can unpack this amazing sentence and understand it, I w...

We live in an age of verbosity!   Put in street language, this means we live in a wordy world.   Maybe other people live in situations where there are not so many words.   But my world is a wordy world.   Just think about how the typical person goes through a day.             It would not be unusual for a person to get out of bed and turn on the tv or the radio---words.   If you have family around, there would be more words.   If we are still working, it would be normal to be somewhere surrounded by words.   Of course, in my college world, there are a million words.   People who stare at computer screens are typically dealing in words.   Often there is some kind of music in the background and the music comes with words.   Meals, social occasions and more tv or computer work at night means a mountain of more words.           ...

I really enjoy finding things when I was not looking for them!   This may be true in much of life, if we would but just learn to live more spiritually attentive.   That is one of the ways I would define contemplative spirituality.   Too often, I think, people assume that something like contemplative spirituality is some esoteric, mystical kind of religious experience that normal people would never be given.            To the contrary, contemplative spirituality is little more than living one’s daily life with a significant level of awareness and with an attentive spirit.   That way you can find things when we are not really looking for them.   That certainly adds a dash of serendipity to life.   And who is against serendipity?   At least my understanding of serendipity is something that is always a good deal.   Maybe that is a good definition of God: a serendipitous God.   God is the Being ...