Saturday Mornings

An annual series:   Fall Tree Of The Day : Winona Lake, IN   More Fall 2021 pics here ....

Roughly a half decade or so ago, I started noticing that everyone began to believe that their political opinions were the most interesting ...

Liberty and responsibility are two sides of one thing. For most people, it’s hard to care about things (or people) they’re not close to. Th...

Morning Brew

' Poem for the week' -- "The Power of Hope Today": Today’s hope is a flickering candle that dwells in a snow-dusted windo...

I couldn't help but think of yesterday's post when I saw this:  

Another lingering reflection , from a recent Randoms ...: Chiding (oneself or others) is rarely an effective long-term strategy for change ....

Early adopters change the world. While one person choosing not to eat meat will have a small impact on our climate, it will have a much bigg...

Ever noticed …where you tend to be most able to help someone else — is it not often related to things you have gone through ?

I keep meeting fellow church leaders, artists, and other stakeholders who share a feeling of estrangement from some of the dominant express...

Sustained dysfunction often leads to authoritarianism .  In love , while words have power, presence has more. Curiosity is like muscle — i...

  We each have a sacred responsibility to the people of the United States. It is not about me. It is about my ability to serve the people. ...

I cannot even begin to describe how resonant I am with the spirit of this (it is like describing the soul of my ‘ Poem for the Week ’ series...

The heart is wiser than the intellect. -- Josiah Gilbert Hollan

Below all the chatter, noise, and bluster of our time; I hear a persistent question — it seems like people are essentially asking, will ther...

Tweeted by William Shatner during his flight last week into space: I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to hav...

I’m wondering …about what the mainline religion Origin Stories would look like from the perspective of a woman? I wouldn't have consider...

To empty the self is not an act of denial, but of fulfillment , for it creates space for God to fill one’s being. -- Sallie McFague

Being... patient  is an active (engaged) kind of waiting. One way to get better at something is to actually do it. Winning isn't the on...

Morning Brew

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.  -- Jean de La Fontaine

New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings. -- Lao Tzu To nod in recognition, you have to go through this a couple of times....

Another lingering reflection , from a recent Randoms ...: When you give of yourself, it tends to cost you something.   I'm guessing most...

One doesn’t lead because he or she is a leader . One leads because they...lead. Leading is often confused by perceptions about the role of l...

I’ve noticed …that I don’t do as well with obscurity as I would have guessed.

Your image of God creates you. -- Richard Rohr

We may be slowly returning to our offices (more or less), but the strains of the pandemic are hardly over. As we enter a transitional stage...

' Poem  for the week' -- "Starfish": This is what life does. It lets you walk up to  the store to buy breakfast and the pa...

What distinguishes the present age is the widespread and lucrative focus on the apocalyptic: the magnification of threats and minimizing o...

Which brings me to the bizarre and thoroughly ridiculous reaction to a picture of a Customs and Border Patrol agent riding a horse. I get th...

If we are unwilling to take the risk to trust others, then others will be unwilling to take the risk to trust us. -- Simon Sinek More tha...

Ever noticed ...how momentary  pleasure is? In fact, that may be one of its purposes — immersion in the moment . But, it doesn’t (can’t?) l...

While many conspire for greed, and many conspire for power , and many conspire for supremacy and domination, may your spirit fill us, Holy O...

Once you have a gun, why bother to learn to read and write. -- Robert Kaplan,  Imperial Grunts The legitimate object of government, is to do...

AXIOS

What you think , you become . What you feel, you attract. What you imagine , you create . -- Buddha

From  Michiana Chronicles : At the risk of sounding like a groupie, I rhapsodize, “Maine is soooo beautiful!” The only negative thing that I...

Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing.  Perhaps a bridge between the two is understanding.  Knowledge alone can actually become destr...

The art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.  -- Georg Cantor

I’m wondering …about the role of disruption in our lives.  Is it something we create — by intention or neglect?  Or, is it a dynamic that j...

In Japan, when a valuable tea bowl or piece of pottery breaks, the owner doesn’t throw it out. They take it to a craftsman who gathers the s...

The pyramid keeps getting bigger...another beautiful day at the 'Big House' in Ann Arbor ...more pics here .

Unfortunately, it seems difficult for people to care about things that don’t affect them directly — a lack of imagination for the experienc...

You can cultivate a posture of open-handedness by asking yourself each day, "What do I have that I can share with others?" -- Mar...

Another lingering reflection (rumination), from a recent Randoms ...: What If...Christianity is much less about what you believe as it is a...

The adventure of life is to learn . The purpose of life is to grow . The nature of life is to change . -- William Arthur Ward

I've noticed ...that often by the end of a day, I have accumulated a variety of feelings — everything from anger to numbness, with the ...

For many spiritual people there’s little doubt that organized  religion , by turning to fundamentalism, is serving reactionary social force...

Some days are such that you just have to remember there will be a tomorrow and it will be different. I’m not interested in perpetuating myth...

The Morning

' Poem for the week' -- "A Distant Song": Whether awake or sleeping,    I cannot rest for long: By my casement comes cree...

Each new chapter of our lives requests an old part of us to fall and a new part of us to rise. -- Jenna Galbut

I am a writer. "No, you're not." But, I write things down all the time. "Well, a writer is someone who is published....

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people. -- Virginia Woolf

Ever noticed …how light can be experienced in such different ways?

God loves things by becoming them. -- Richard Rohr

“In those fateful hours, we learned other lessons as well. We saw that Americans were vulnerable, but not fragile. That they possessed a cor...

Nearly anyone can be a critic (especially in retrospect) — it is much harder to have the will to think and work at making something better....

AXIOS

The way we eat has changed the planet. In this simple idea, which few of us consider when we go to the grocery store, lies immense hope for ...