Desert Day 04: The Conscious Effort Real Love Requires …

Whether you think about the mind from the perspective of Western psychology or Eastern spirituality or common sense, it’s clear that the mind is wired to find order. Habits make us feel safe. Judgments of those who are different than us make us feel protected. The stories we tell ourselves, really, are part of the…

A Different Kind of Fast …

The kind of fast drawing me this season isn’t leaving behind of treats like chocolate or other pleasures. This season I am being invited to fast from things like “ego-grasping” and noticing when I so desperately want to be in control, and then yielding myself to a greater wisdom than my own. I am called to…

How You Love Yourself, Is How You Love The World…

Just Be Yourself To be who you are is to be enough. To share who you are is to share enough. To do what you love is to do enough. There is no race to win and nothing to be proven, only dreams to be nurtured, a self to be expressed, and love to be…

There Is No Protection Against Adversity … What You Have Is Yourself …

There is no protection against adversity. There are no guarantees. What you have is yourself, made in the image of something very great, the Greatest thing. You have yourself, and the particular circumstances of your life. What you create is your measure of love. What you create is up to you. We choose what we…

Say Yes …

What if Just for a moment We stop And allow ourselves to believe That we are perfect Not just enough For that suggests a limitation in itself, Perfect Unimaginably dazzling Clothed in potential and possibility Howling with joyous abandonment For the richness of the landscape That frames our life Dancing every step Whether winds are…

Cracks That Let The Light In …

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. —  T.S. Eliot from Little Gidding (Four Quartets) Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There’s a crack in everything – That’s how…

Prayer For Myself …

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. — Siddhārtha Gautama Lord, I am guilty of neglect.…

How Silence Works …

Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston corresponded with four Trappist Monks about their efforts to “cultivate silence” within their monastic enclosure to find out just what the sound of silence actually is. Read the full post here. Are all your actions done in total silence? How do monks coordinate work? There must be a small amount of words that are…

New Ways of Thinking …

If your purpose is only about you, it has no branches. If it is only about the rest of the world, it has no roots. That is why learning through the wounds in our history, the moments when our essential needs were not met in some very basic ways, are moments that stand still in…