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Your Best Life Now

“Stop striving to be important.” Good advice from Mark Nepo.  Hard as heck, however, to stop doing. Striving…seeking…competing…clamoring for the spotlight. It’s easier to see this stuff in others than to see it in yourself.  Ambition gone amok. Competitiveness gone viral. Who can stomach for very long the performer who’s always seeking the applause of…

To believe, what does that mean? To have faith, can you explain? Faith, the capacity to believe, is an innate gift of Divine grace imparted to you at birth. In other words, you are a believer at birth. How do I know this? I was reminded of this as I awakened today. I went to…

To believe, what does that mean? To have faith, can you explain? Faith, the capacity to believe, is an innate gift of Divine grace imparted to you at birth. In other words, you are a believer at birth. How do I know this? I was reminded of this as I awakened today. I went to…

Saint Paul said, “In everything, give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:17). Yea right? Who does that? Give thanks for everything?  Really?  You’ve got to be kidding, Paul. Not one of your more inspiring moments, if you ask me. For pleasures? Well, of course! For friends and family and good times! Yes. Yes. Of course, I give…

All structures…foundations…all pillars of faith….in other words, all beliefs are uncertain, temporary, and they are not…I repeat…they are not the source of authentic faith… …if authentic faith is what you seek. Faith is authentic…genuine…most real…when it has nothing upon which to stand. Which is why I’ve always liked the picture at the top of this page.  It…

“If we devote ourselves to the effort to be real, the Universe in all its forms will find us, the way that wind finds leaves and waves find shore” – Mark Nepo. “The effort to be real…” That is my greatest ambition. Which is why I try very hard to write what’s in my heart,…

You are thinking that what has happened to you is a “failure.” Right? Think again. Could it be, as someone has put it, that “what you perceive as a failure is simply life unfolding in a new direction?” Can you wrap your mind around that question? Will you entertain this possibility?  That what you now…

“Be no longer children,” wrote the Apostle Paul, “but grow up in Christ” (Eph. 4:15). All my spiritual life…for as long as I can remember…religious people have sincerely, but mistakenly, exhorted me to “grow up in Christ.” It sounded reasonable. And, they were quoting Saint Paul. But what did most of these religious people really…

Or, so said Saint Francis. Rumi, the Sufi poet put it slightly differently, “What you seek is seeking you.” And, Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom.” So, what is the Kingdom? It is not the Church. Not heaven either. Are you disappointed? Don’t be.  What the Kingdom actually is…is better than both. One day, when I…

Inglorious Basterds! Not sure why they spell it that way, but they do. Remember the war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino? I’m pretty sure “Inglorious Basterds” is an apt name for my ego…maybe yours, too. I have struggled to overcome my ego for decades.  If you’re a theologian type, get used to this…
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