A few times in recent weeks I’ve had the sensation that I couldn’t get a full inhalation, the kind of deep breath that is restorative. This was an unusual feeling for me and so it caught my attention. While this…
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Consequences
If a petulant child throws a fit and disrupts the big family dinner, kicking and screaming, breaking dishes and so forth… and the parents pull him aside to discipline him… would you say that the parents are dividing the family…
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Reverence and Respect
Throughout my life I have learned the value of setting some things apart as sacred. As a child in Catholic grade school I was taught reverence around religious places, things, and rituals. We genuflected toward the altar and tabernacle, for…
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Addressing Blind Spots
I am fascinated by blind spots. Not the physical inability to see something, but the psychological unconsciousness that holds hostage our shadow sides — the aspects of ourselves we find antithetical to who we consider ourselves to be or how…
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God With Us
Over the past few months part of my prayer time has been spent recognizing the ways God lives in me and the ways I live in God. What do I mean by that? Simply put, if God is Love, then…
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It All Goes Back to Love
Yesterday some colleagues and I were sharing our family traditions surrounding the holidays. It was very nice to reflect upon all the little and big things we do to mark this time as extra special. After the sharing concluded I…
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The Beauty of Boundaries
A boundary is something that marks limits and protects. Sometimes it’s a fence around one’s property. Sometimes it’s expressing a firm “no.” Sometimes it’s clarity about trust, or how one expects to be treated.
I have been reading about boundaries…
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Count Your Blessings
As I think of Thanksgiving this year, a lyric from my song “Heaven’s Gonna Heal My Sorrow” comes to mind. That lyric is: “I’ve lived long enough to know, you count your blessings when it hurts.” I think this lesson…
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The Do-Over
Over the years I, like most people, have had my share of blunders. Some big, some small. There have been conversations wherein as soon as the words were out I wished I could suck them back into my mouth, or…
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