Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Occasionally ideas simply pop into my head.   They come as gifts of the universe or God or some Giver of gifts.   When I write this, I have to laugh.   I laugh because it is true for me.   At the same time, I realize how the truth of this could tempt me to want to manipulate it.   I am tempted to think, why not have money pop into my hands instead of ideas popping into my mind!   I could immediately spend the money.   Ideas come, but they seldom have any value until I work with them, fashion them and put them into a larger whole. This is what I am doing with this inspirational piece.   The phrase, “power of partnerships,” came into my mind.   It would have been the easiest thing in the world to ignore it.   On the surface, the phrase sounds true enough, but there is nothing special about it.   There is nothing that inherently attracted me to the phrase.   But I have learned to receive this kind of gift---even if I do not k...

One of the reasons I enjoy reading a variety of things is because of new ideas that come my way.   Of course, I read quite a bit of religious and spiritual material.   But I like a range of other things, too.   I actually enjoy reading about contemporary science discoveries.   And the whole psychological world fascinates me, mostly because all human beings are psychological beings.   I read a piece recently that combined most of these different areas. The article was written by a Franciscan Sister, Sr. Ilio Delio, and it contained the gist of her comments to a gathering of religious women.   On the surface this seems like a boring read.   In fact, I found it fascinating.   In the first place, I was quite intrigued by the theology inherent in the text.   By theology I mean her view of God and how God works in our world.   Clearly, she is well versed in the scientific way of viewing our world---our cosmos.   I am always inspired ...

I am working my way through a book now that is quite challenging and very rewarding.  Fortunately, I am reading it along with a group that I lead.  The folks in the group are great troupers.  They are plugging along with me.  They are not complaining---no whining!  I fear if I were using it in a normal college class, there would be some grumpiness about how “hard” it is.  The book is by Christian Wiman and is entitled, My Bright Abyss .  The subtitle is revealing: Meditation of a Modern Believer .             I don’t know Wiman and have to confess that I had not even heard of him.  He is a poet.  He also is a lecturer in religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.  He has been editor of Poetry magazine, which one publication calls “the oldest and most esteemed poetry monthly in the world.”  Wiman was born in 1966 and as a relatively young man of thirty-n...

I have always been fascinated with titles.   When you read that sentence, you probably think of book titles.   Certainly, most people would say that book titles are important.   I would not disagree.   But when you think about it further, there are many other kinds of titles.      Since I have paid off my old car, I have the title to that.   It shows that I now own it.   The bank owns the title to most of our houses.   So apparently, a great deal of property comes with titles to show ownership.   But not all ownership is individual.   Some things are owned corporately.   The college where I teach is a private school, so that means there is ownership.   But it is owned corporately.   The appointed trustees, in fact, oversee their ownership responsibilities.   But no single person owns the campus or the buildings.   The same idea pertains to national parks.   All Americans, in effect, own Yosemite...

I enjoy getting a new book and diving into the ideas contained in it.   Sometimes I have a fairly good idea of what I will get; other times I have little to no clue what I will read.   A recent read is a book suggested by one of my favorite columnists, David Brooks.   I read Brooks in the New York Times online.   One of his columns mentioned a book by an editor of a poetry journal.   It was a book that was intriguingly religious in Brooks’ estimation.   I became intrigued, too, and jumped into My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman. I had never heard of Wiman, so I had no idea what to expect.   The book is very engaging, but not an easy read.   The are ample examples of poetry, which is fun for me, since I don’t know that much about poetry and probably don’t understand and appreciate it like I could.   I feel like I am growing.   I feel like I am learning and being challenged.           ...

As we think about the season of Lent, we realize that there are many different ways in which we prepare for the life that God has in mind for us.  And I do believe God has something in mind for us.  I see Lent as a time for raising our consciousness---a time for becoming both intentional and using discipline. As I look back over my life, there have been obvious times of preparation.  Every time that I went out for a team sport, there was a time to prepare.  If I made the team, I began by going to practice.  Day after day, I worked on the fundamentals.  I never saw practice as drudgery; I loved playing. All of the foreign languages that I have learned involved times of preparation.  I had to learn new words---new ways to create sentences.  I had to get used to hearing different sounds.  But what a thrill, after I learned, to live life in a new and different way! Both of these examples---playing sports and leaning a new language---involve...

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...

Recently it dawned on me that my spiritual discipline is a great deal like my physical discipline.   I am sure that is not novel, but I also am sure I never thought about it quite like that.   Being active physically has been important to me for as long as I can remember.   I am lucky in the sense that it has always been something I wanted to do, rather than felt like I had to do it.   Perhaps growing up on a farm helped the process.   I cannot remember when I did not go outside to work or to play.   On the farm there was a great deal of work.   But there also was a fair amount of play.   Both are healthy.   In due time sports became very important to me.   I certainly was no star, but I played with gusto.   I had fun and was active.   I continue to play long after my eligible years in school were finished.   Being physically active was a way of life for me.   It was not a matter of virtue.   I did it because ...

This inspiration is rooted in a rather serendipitous time I recently had with some athletes, coaches and a professional music composer.   While it is not unusual for me to hang out with athletes and coaches, there typically is not a music composer thrown into the mix!   But he added a tremendous leavening effect to the dialogue and spurred me to thinking about things about which I normally would not.          The intent of the meeting was straightforward.   If people who are not in the same fields or who are not alike spend time together, new and different conversations are likely to happen and, possibly, new ideas arise.   I am sure we would have to do it more than one time, but that one time was enough to suggest the possibilities.   And they were exciting.   And even more, it was a great deal of fun.             I was fascinated to listen to the music composer...

To be free, oh, to be free.   Freedom has always been a major theme of American culture.   Indeed, this country was rooted in a political and religious quest for freedom.   Any of us with any age hears the resonant voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in the turbulent 1960s calling for freedom to ring out.             But freedom is a much older concept than these North American colonies, now global super-state.   And freedom certainly is not an American concept alone.   Freedom goes back to those Jews who experienced liberation from Egyptian bondage.   It is as old as those Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle.   Freedom has been an issue on the national scale as well as on the individual scale.             Freedom is always the opposite of bondage and slavery. In many ways I would claim never to have experienced bondag...

“ I still remember how startled I was when a young woman I was interviewing told me God had spoken to her, audibly.”   This is the opening line of an article I recently read.   The article had an enticing title: “Is that God Talking?”   With a title like that, how could I resist!   If I were interviewing someone and he or she told me that God spoke to him or her---audibly---I probably would suspect some kind of mental illness.   Maybe I am a theologian and a cynic!   Certainly the author, T.M. Luhrmann, is no kook.   She is professor of anthropology at Stanford.   Stanford is one of the leading higher education institutions in the nation.   Luhrmann has been doing anthropological studies among evangelicals.   She wants to know about their religious experience.   And in a way, I realized that I also am fascinated by people’s experience that differ from me.   I would tell people that I have experienced God and God’s presenc...

Because I spend a great deal of time with people, I tend to be fairly aware of what is going on with them.   Sometimes they tell me and others what’s happening and other times I simply pay attention and they may “talk” with body language or other means.   I certainly don’t have any special gifts or skills in this.   I think I just pay more attention than many people.             One of the facets of being human that fascinates me is what people hope for.   It seems that humans tend to be creatures of hope.   I have no clue whether we are genetically wired that way or if our environment---especially our American culture---shapes us to be hopeful.   And I can imagine my own perception is warped by the kind of particular culture in which I live and spend most of my time.   For example, much of my time is spent in a university setting and that surely is a place of significant hopes.   Compare t...

The title for this inspirational piece could also be written in a different way.   I could have chosen to say “alone and together.”   In either case the question in my mind is how people in general and how I in particular practice the spiritual journey.   On one hand the answer is obvious.   My spiritual journey is mine alone.   You cannot do my spiritual journey and I cannot do yours.   From this perspective to pose the question, alone or together, is senseless.   It seems like my spiritual journey is done alone.             There is no way I can speak for the majority of Americans who actually would say they are on a spiritual journey.   However, I would guess that many, if not most of them, are doing their spiritual journey alone.   I would say this even knowing that a significant portion of people on their spiritual journey are folks who go to church, attend a synagogue or mosque. ...