Giving Up is Different From Letting Someone Down
Brother David Steindl-Rast
This inner gesture of letting go from moment to moment is what is so terribly difficult for us; and it can be applied to almost any area of experience. We mentioned time, for instance: there is the wh...
Keeping Nothing Between
Eugene Gendlin
In a restaurant a little girl in the next booth turns to look at you. It is an open look, direct from her – to you. She doesn’t know that strangers are not supposed to connect. She does no...
How Is Your Heart Doing?
Omid Safi
In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is yourhaal? What is this haal that you inq...
That Friend Walking Behind Me
Parker Palmer
Imagine that for many years a friend had been walking a block behind me, calling my name, trying to get my attention because he wanted to tell me some hard but healing truths about myself. But I -- af...
Planetary Beings with Planetary Hearts
Clare Dakin
The instinct to fit in and feel safe seems stronger – to maintain the status quo – to be as comfortable and insulated as possible whilst praying like mad that someone else is going to step...
Creative Living
Elizabeth Gilbert
This, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you? Look, I don't know what's hi...
Learning Not to Be Afraid of Things That Are Real
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Recently I've been looking through a field guide on nature observation. The author, when he was a child, was trained by an old Native American. One day the child asked the old man, "Why is it...
The Value of Solitude
William Deresiewicz
Loneliness is not the absence of company, it is grief over that absence. The lost sheep is lonely; the shepherd is not lonely. But the Internet is as powerful a machine for the production of lonelines...
Rediscovering the Art of Reverence
John O'Donohue
What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spiri...
Pronounce a Silent Blessing
Barbara Brown Taylor
"It is forbidden to taste of the pleasures of this world without a blessing." --The Talmud I think that the best way to discover what pronouncing blessings is all about is to pronounce a ...
Renewability Makes Something Valuable
Martin Prechtel
In the village, people used to build their houses out of traditional materials, using no iron or lumber or nails, but the houses were magnificent. Many were sewn together out of bark and fiber. L...
Relationships Make You Conscious, Not Happy
Eckhart Tolle
With the acknowledgment and acceptance of the facts also comes a degree of freedom from them. For example, when you know there is disharmony and you hold that "knowing," through your knowing...