Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

Chattering Mind

The following blessing comes from a new selection of prayers for women with cancer. They were written by Diann L. Neu, co-founder and co-director of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual, and author of several collections of feminist liturgy. Blessing For When the Chemotherapy Drug Flows Blessed are You, Compassionate One,For giving me…

When I’m not writing or cooking, doing yoga or driving the kids around, I am in bed with George Washington, wondering just how religious he is, or was. It’s been fun. In fact, I’ve become intimately acquainted with all our founding fathers’ religious beliefs. How? Well, Mr. Chattering’s full library of books on Washington, Franklin,…

Novelist Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) is the talented author of “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” a tale of rollicking disaster that’s hugely popular with the eight to 11-year-old set. In an interview with editor Nadine Epstein in this month’s Moment: Jewish Politics, Culture, Religion magazine, Handler confesses to being raised in a Jewish household…

There’s a smell. You know that smell? It’s the fake pine smell of the commercial cleaning products that many schools and restaurants use. When I’m stuck somewhere and I smell that smell I feel like climbing the walls. I used to sit it out. Now I leave, or move, and pray that soon, everyone will…

Beliefnet just posted Valerie Reiss’s excellent interview with writer and free spirit Alice Walker. Walker says: We have a splendid opportunity, for the first time ever on earth, to truly get to the root of things and to transform human society. It’s entirely possible, and it’s really up to us. And since I believe that,…

Chinese New Year begins with the new moon this February 18th and lasts until the full moon two weeks from now. In China, this period of feasts with prayers for prosperity is seen as the actual beginning of spring. Since I’m a Christian with Jewish children who naturally gravitates toward Eastern art and philosophy, I…

Here and here are web pages with good Chinese New Year’s recipes. This book for young children is a guide to holiday folktales, customs, and Chinese banquet food.

Remember when Bill Moyers showed brain surgery being performed in the early 1990s with acupuncture as the sole form of anesthesia on his PBS series “Healing and the Mind?” American acupuncturists point to that televised moment as the beginning of America’s receptivity to this centuries-old Chinese healing method. Well, yesterday Oprah Winfrey gave acupuncture its…

National treasure/quirky odd duck Camille Paglia’s back writing for Salon.com after a six-year absence. Here’s a snippet of her first column (you may have to get a trial subscription to read the whole thing). I am a pro-choice libertarian Democrat whose platform remains the same, above all regarding educational reform. I denounce the outrageous expense,…

Here’s a good article about how children who are praised too much sometimes grow up to be risk adverse. Remember to say, “Oh, I see you worked so hard on that! Tell me about it.” instead of “Cool! You’re sooo smart!” when your children show you their artwork. Hard to do this sometimes, I know.
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners