Faith & Life Inspirational Message

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...

We anticipate another Labor Day for yet another year.  As holidays go, it is one of the least important for me.  Maybe it is because I grew up on a dairy farm, so Labor Day was pointless; we still milked the cows twice that day just like any other day!  But clearly, it is special in many ways for many people.  And I am always intrigued by the history of a special day. Labor Day was declared a national holiday in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland.  The traditional day of celebration apparently was chosen by some unions in New York.  Since I have spent some time abroad, I know the traditional global day of celebrating labor is May 1.  Sometimes these international days of celebration can lead to political protest and disruptions.  It seems President Cleveland was concerned about that, so he wanted to avoid that May date.  So the first Monday in September was a safer alternative. There are typical associations with Labor Day....

I have often dealt with the idea of purpose in many of my classes.  When I am dealing with spirituality, I am convinced one of the issues is having purpose in one’s life.  As I deal with students, I have the sense they know having a purpose is a good thing.  Obviously many of them do have a purpose.  But there are others who have not thought much about it.  They may have a borrowed purpose from their parents or maybe a coach or someone they admire.  They may have an implicit purpose, but have a hard time articulating it.     Often it occurs to me, younger folks may not have a clear sense of what a purpose really is.  Simply speaking, a purpose is the reason for something.  It can be the reason something exists.  It might be the reason something is done or, even, not done.  In short, purpose is the reason for being or doing something.     It is clear to me there are many different kinds of purposes.  The...

I enjoy teaching the material I teach.  I find it relevant to life and trust the students will discover the same thing for their life.  I am not confident that what I teach will help them get the kind of job they want.  But I am very confident they will not have a very meaningful life if they don’t start reflecting on the things I teach.  As most of us know, life is more than a job---more than even a career.  And even if we feel called to do what we do, simply doing that is not sufficient to the good life.     This is why one of the spiritual practices essential to the good life is to live virtuously.  The classical virtues---like love, courage, justice and the others---have been around a very long time.  They are aids to good relationships.  Without them, we will be heading for quicksand.  And so one of the practices I want students to work on is living a life of virtue.  If effect, this kind of life produces people of...

For some time now I have been aware of the reports and, sometimes, controversy over the whole issue of climate change and nature.  Some folks think we are heading toward a climate crisis—global warming and the like.  Other folks scoff at such an idea and assume everything is fine.  Most of us are scientifically not savvy enough to have a clue how to think about it.  I know I am not smart enough to be an expert.  In fact, it is a struggle to know enough to have an educated opinion.     What I know is I trust science.  Having said that, I also know quite a few religious people put no faith in science.  In fact, quite a few religious folks think there is a basic conflict between religion and science.  I do not find myself in that camp.  I see science and religious as compatible, but different, ways of seeing and understanding our world.  I like to think I am both scientifically appreciative of knowledge and religiously moti...

Two saints!  The Roman Catholic Church has a ton of saints.  Of course, that is a statement by a Quaker, a tradition that typically does not talk about saints.  As I grew up in the Quaker environment, the only time I heard “saint language” was about some of the writers in the Bible.  I did hear people talk about St. John or St. Paul.  As a kid, if asked about saints, I would have assumed saints are “Bible guys.”  Since I never gave it any thought, I never thought about women saints.        My own Quaker tradition has held the radical equality of men and women since the beginning of our seventeenth century.  That part of Quakerism rubbed off on me and I have been very happy about that.  I have always seen women as my equal.  In fact, I would usually assume women were, by and large, better saint candidates than men---myself included!          I am glad that my...

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 endeavored to keep growing ever since.  I have become more worl...