Faith & Life Inspirational Message

It is with considerable trepidation that I write about my granddaughter.   Certainly it is not that she embarrasses me.   To the contrary, I am very proud of her.   That is one of the roles of grandparents, as I have learned from others.   Of course, she is cute, smart, and about the most amazing young kid of this century!   And of course, that is totally biased and ungrounded, but that is my prejudice.             Actually writing about my grandkid is something like pulling out too many photos of her and subjecting a friend with more photos than the one picture he or she probably is willing to look at.   I know it takes longer to read this than it would take to look at one picture and say something like, “that’s nice!”             I have begun to realize that my granddaughter is becoming my teacher.   That is probably not surprising to C...

A friend has given me a book.   That is not the first time I have been given a book.   I suspect that is due, in part, to my profession.   Because I’m a college professor, I am sure that folks think I deal with books all day long.   Sometimes that is close to the truth.   Books are important to my work.   It is not the books per se ; it is the ideas in the books.   Books are written because people have ideas and want to develop those ideas and share them.   And so it is that I want to dive into my new book.             The book is by S. Brent Plate and is entitled, A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects .   I have only begun the book, but I know he talks about things like stones, which have historically played a key role in religious observance and life.   It should be interesting and a challenge because my normal Quaker response is that I don’t care much about “religious things.” ...

While reading for an upcoming speech I have to give, I ran across a great quotation and some helpful reflection.   Although it was not inherently a spiritual message, it struck me that implicitly it was spiritual.   The one-liner comes from the well-known Peanut cartoonist, Charles Schulz.   He said, “Life is a ten-speed bike.   Most of us have gears we never use.” Obviously Schulz is using an analogy here.   Life is more complex than a bicycle.   But if we understand something about the bike, then we can gain some insight to life.   This is a time-honored way of approaching not only life, but also spirituality.   Use what you know to learn about what you may know less about.   Of course, most of us have ridden bicycles in our lifetime.   And you have to be pretty old to remember bikes that only had one gear!   Since I can recall those kinds of bikes, that is one more sign that age is creeping up on me.   At some point, t...

Sometimes my life can get too complex.  It may be because too much is going on.  Perhaps it is something like the beginning of a new school year or a holiday season.  Sometimes it is self-inflicted.  For those of us who have a hard time saying, “no,” life can become too demanding.  Busyness is always a sign that life is bordering on being too complex. But I am aware that complex lives cannot simply be equated with busy lives.  For some people, it is the opposite extreme, namely, boredom.  I know some people who, in their own words, “are bored to death.”  Obviously they are not literally dead.  But their boredom is a form of being dead---a kind of pre-mortem deadness.  They are as good as dead.  When I sense complexity is becoming a pressing life issue for me, I know it is time to entertain its opposite: simplicity.  Simplicity has a hallowed history in my own Quaker tradition.  I know I have been “for it” all my life....