Breaking the grips of materialism

I used to love going to the underground parking garage of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or the Merc, when I began trading there in 1991.  Four floors of underground parking held some of the most expensive and sexy automobiles I had ever seen.  Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari, they...

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What is koinonia?

Saint George Preca has been likened as a successor to Saint Paul's evangelical work on the island of Malta. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)  "What is koinonia?" Koinonia is a Greek word that occurs 20 times in the Bible. Koinonia’s primary meaning is “fellowship, sharing in common, communion.”...

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I face the pain of my life with courage.

I face the pain of my life with courage. Within my pain is the wisdom to transform it. I turn my pain into wisdom.  &nb...

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Buddhist Scripture

"When Buddha was on his death bed he noticed his young disciple Anan was weeping. 'Why are you weeping, Anan?' he asked. 'Because the light of the world is about to be extinguished and we will be in darkness.' The Buddha summoned up all his remaining energy and spoke what were to be his final words on earth: 'Anan, Anan, be a light unto yourself.'"  &nb...

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A crisis is a gift

A crisis is a gift, an opportunity, and perhaps a manifestation that life loves us, by beckoning us to go beyond the dance we presently perfo...

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Biblical flavor of the Twelve Steps as they originally flowed from the Bible-studying Christians in Akron and from the lips of Reverend Sam Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York.

I believe you can get the real Biblical flavor of the Twelve Steps as they originally flowed from the Bible-studying Christians in Akron and from the lips of Reverend Sam Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York. I also believe the verses will put to rest much of the private interpretation and speculation as to what the Steps really mean.[Because the following verse quotations were...

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A different viewpoint Addiction as a disease of choice – a loss of choice.

Morality in a nutshell is defined as choosing to conform to social norms and behaviour.  Thus, for an addict not to be immoral, it would require that the addict has no choice over their behaviour.We used to think that addiction took place in the frontal cortex of the brain, this is where we have free will, rationality, consciousness and, yes, morality.  With advances in neuroscience and...

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Healthy Boundaries

We dont have to feel guilty or apologise or explain ourselves after we've set a boundary. We can learn to accept the awkwardness and discomfort of setting boundaries with people. We can establish our rights to have these limits. We can give the other person room to have and explore his or her feelings, we can give ourselves room to have our feelings-as we struggle to own our power and create good,...

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DEVELOPMENT OF A FACEBOOK ADDICTION SCALE

DEVELOPMENT OF A FACEBOOK ADDICTION SCALE1,2CECILIE SCHOU ANDREASSENDepartment of Psychosocial Science University of BergenThe Bergen Clinics Foundation, NorwayTORBJØRN TORSHEIM, GEIR SCOTT BRUNBORG, STÅLE PALLESENDepartment of Psychosocial Science University of Bergen, Norway SummaryThe Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS), initially a pool of 18 items, three...

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You may be lost in the addiction to Social Media

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICT You may be lost in the addiction to Social Media if…Your usual response to “how are you?” is “so busy”, “crazy busy” or “busy but good”You spend time worrying about how busy you are going to be tomorrowYou get angry when your spouse or...

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ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICT

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTYou may be lost in the addiction to busyness if…Your usual response to “how are you?” is “so busy”, “crazy busy” or “busy but good”You spend time worrying about how busy you are going to be tomorrowYou get angry when your spouse or friends aren’t as busy as youYour busy life keeps you up at night thinking about everything you didn’t get doneYou...

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Hope is a positive and potent spiritual practice with the power to pull us through difficult times.

It is usually described with light metaphors — a ray, a beam, a glimmer of hope; the break in the clouds; the light at the end of the dark tunnel. It is often discovered in unexpected places.Hope can be learned with practice. Certain attitudes support it. One is patience, an ability to tolerate delays, a willingness to let events unfold in their own time. The other is courage, an attitude of confidence...

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The joy of life for my Spanish Rainbow

The joy of life is living it and doing things of worth,In making bright and fruitful the entire desert spots of earth.In facing odds and mastering them and rising from defeat,And making true what once was false, and what was bitter, make sweet.For only you know perfect joy whose little bit of soilIs richer ground than what it was when you began to to...

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Awareness BAD MOTIVES

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: People don't really want to grow up, people don't really want to change, people don't really want to be happy

Do you think I am going to help anybody? No! Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Don't expect me to be of help to anyone. Nor do I expect to damage anyone. If you are damaged, you did it; and if you are helped, you did it. You really did! You think people help you? They don't. You think people support you? They don't. There was a woman in a therapy group I was conducting once. She was a religious sister....

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The Four Steps To Spiritual Wisdom

The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you're not even aware of. Lots of people have negative feelings they're not aware of. Lots of people are depressed and they're not aware they are depressed. It's only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they were. You can't deal with a cancer that you haven't detected. You can't get rid of boll...

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And where is this heaven

To a disciple who was obsessed with the thought of life after death, the Master said, "Why waste a single moment thinking of the hereafter?" "But is it possible not to?" "Yes." "How?" "By living in heaven here and now." "And where is this heaven?" "In the here and no...

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Signs that you may have had or are going threw a Spiritual Awakening

1. Changing sleep patterns: restlessness, hot feet, waking up two or three times a night. 2. Sudden waves of emotion. Crying at the drop of a hat. Feeling suddenly angry or sad with little provocation. Or inexplicably *depressed - then very happy! An emotional roller coaster.3. Altered eating habits, * food intolerances, allergies you never had before. Unusual...

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Pray without ceasing.

Pray without ceasing. - 1 Thessalonians 5:17 For those of us who have been fortunate enough to be in love with someone very special, we can recall what it was like during the few weeks after we first met. It's impossible to be with that person every moment of every day, but they are still on our mind, day and night. Thoughts of this person pervade our entire life, even when they are...

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Pray without ceasing

The Way of a Pilgrim is how this journal is presented to us in English. A more correct translation of the title used by the author would be “Candid Narratives of a Pilgrim to his Spiritual Father.” It is clearly written before the liberation of the serfs which took place in 1861, mention is made of the Crimean war that took place in 1853, so the book was written between those two dates. The book finally...

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A “parable of community”

Today, the Taizé Community is made up of over a hundred brothers, Catholics and from various Protestant backgrounds, coming from around thirty nations. By its very existence, the community is a “parable of community” that wants its life to be a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians and between separated peoples.The brothers of the community live solely by their work. They do not accept...

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Do not let my darkness speak to me

“Do not let my darkness speak to me!” Darkness meant the insinuations of doubt. But this doubt did not shake the self-evidence with which he felt God’s love. Perhaps it was even this doubt that required a language with no room for ambiguity. The self-evidence I am speaking about was not found on an intellectual level, but more deeply, on the level of the heart. And like everything that cannot be protected...

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What would make more sense if the descent into hell was a return to this life. This life as a version of hell on earth for I am the life of the dead.

Let us return once more to the night of Holy Saturday. In the Creed we say about Christ’s journey that he “descended into hell.” What happened then? Since we have no knowledge of the world of death, we can only imagine his triumph over death with the help of images which remain very inadequate. Yet,...

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The Truth

Christians are still too likely to misunderstand the Transfiguration and look upon it as just one miracle among others, a kind of apologetic proof. The feast celebrating it has likewise become indistinct to them, perhaps because it is the only one not to have a place in the chronological sequence of the Lord’s feasts. It is a commemoration of an event that occurred during his mortal life, but it is...

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