Faith & Life Inspirational Message

No doubt, one of the best things that happened to me when I went to college was my narrow provincialism began to be challenged and changed.   Provincialism is not inherently bad; it is just limited.   To be provincial is to be limited to one’s single province.   My growing up province was a rural Indiana farm community.   It was a great place to grow up---wonderful people and the values they held to, like hard work, honesty, etc.   I have been forever grateful for this nurturing culture.   But it also was provincial.             It was provincial for me because it limited my view of the world---my sense of the incredible diversity and complexity of the world.   Provincialism is a form of limited ignorance.   Very smart people can be provincial.   Smart people can be ignorant!   I was one!   I didn’t know what I didn’t know.   College began to change that and I have endea...

Labor Day has come and gone.   For most of us, it is nothing more than a national holiday.   I must admit that I don’t give it much thought.   It falls into the category of secular holidays.   Unlike Christmas and Easter, Labor Day does not have roots in any religious tradition.   Of course, both Christmas and Easter have their origins in the Christian tradition.   And those two certainly have come to play a huge secular role in our nation’s life.   They both have economic impacts that have huge implications for businesses.   The same cannot quite be said for Labor Day, although every store I am aware of seems to have a Labor Day sale!            Personally, it is not very special for me.   When I was a kid growing up on a farm, it was a great time to have three straight days to be involved in the harvesting.   But I don’t have much to do with corn and beans anymore, except to eat them...

One of the things I most like about writing this inspirational thing is how it forces me to live life more attentively.   I do not know of any major spiritual tradition which does not say one needs to live attentively.   The other amazing thing about myself is how easy it is not to live attentively.   This is probably true for many of you, too.   It is easy for me to fake out myself.   If I am not thinking about it, I assume that I would be living attentively.   If I am honest, I have a pretty high view of myself.   By that, I don’t mean I am a walking, prideful, arrogant guy.   I don’t think that.   By having a high view of myself, I mean that I see myself as pretty capable---pretty “with it” when it comes to functioning in the world.      At one level this is probably true.   I am educated at a level higher than the average American.   By now I also have lived long enough to have accumulated significant experi...

When I was younger, these two words confused me.   Sometimes, I misspelled them.   And I see this same confusion among students today.   I know that many faculty claim students are not what they used to be.   My guess is the same thing was being said of my generation.   Spelling may be one of those things we all are sure current students don’t do as well as the older ones remember they once did!            What I do remember is not being clear, which was to spell the arid land devoid of water and the food served at the end of a meal.   Do I use one “s” or two?   And why does English have to be so confusing was the question?   I can only imagine what learning English as a second language might mean.              I thought it would be fun to explore both words---desert and dessert---as words that can have a spiritual meaning.   In...

When you live long enough, no doubt you do things you never thought you would be doing.   I guess I have lived long enough!   I am ok with that. However, most of the stuff I am doing, that I never thought I would be doing, was not invented when I was a kid.   If I think about the friends I have who are in their eighties or nineties, the changes in the world in their lifetime is stupefying.   Even the changes in my lifetime astound me.   Obviously, much of it is technology.   The fact that I sit with my laptop typing this inspirational piece which then will be uploaded to cyberspace to be read as an email or blog makes me laugh.   I use words in that previous sentence that would have made no sense to a Hoosier farm boy when I was growing up.   A car is a car, but my car today is not even close to the first car I drove.   And so the countless changes could be added to the list.   I am not an early adapter.   I certainly was not ...