I relish the day when my friend calls and says “we need to go for a walk.” Her call is “code” for “let’s go hiking, so we can get spiritually above all this stuff that’s going on right now.” Even though we climb low hills and rarely log more than six miles, our conversation climbs up out of our everyday challenges and we encourage each other to look at things from a higher, more spiritual, perspective. Currently there are numerous studies expounding the health benefits of spending more Continue Reading
Retiring into our spiritual purpose, ending Alzheimer’s
Summer brings with it reunions, and this year I was amazed to learn that one of our aunts now shares her home with three additional generations! She has great grandchildren living under her roof. And as the statistics and studies for this blog started to accumulate on my desk, I realized that her life actually evidences some of the trends I had been flagging as hopeful--the ones that say dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s, is on its way out. Dutch researchers, for example, have found that the Continue Reading
Who should be worthy of forgiveness?
When I show up on Sunday mornings, I like to wake things up a bit. I like to send the kids off with some new spiritual tools to rev up the “normal” in their weeks. As a high school Sunday school teacher, I make sure that I am really, really prepared... podcasts, videos, new music, thought- provoking questions. Also, I am equally prepared to toss the prep work and listen to what these kids need to discuss. Last Sunday was one of those times when I threw aside my plans. The first question went Continue Reading
Here’s the rock, here’s the hard place – now what?
We don’t see it coming, we only get two choices and both choices are completely unacceptable. What do we do? We are handed a first-thing-tomorrow deadline, for instance. Because of expensive and once-in-a-lifetime plans for tonight, we say “no”. Left with no other choice, the boss issues an ultimatum, “... get it on my desk by 8:00 A.M.” We can: 1) “cancel plans” 2) “leave career” Both options - unsatisfactory. And then it happens again... Facing repeated “no-way-out” endings can Continue Reading
Fasting out of cancer
Fasting - it’s trendy right now, promising everything from weight loss to a cure for cancer. Fasting hearkens back to a variety of ancient traditions and, in some, carries with it the promise of spiritual clarity and physical healing. In numerous Biblical accounts, for example, fasting was practiced in deep times of need (Job), in times of mourning and as intercessory prayer (Nehemiah and Daniel after Jerusalem had been desolated) and in times of much needed spiritual strength (Jesus fasts Continue Reading