A Mindful Life

Buddha beginning. Grow up, forget, find once more: essence glows within. ephotograph.com

A Journey When he got up that morning everything was different: He enjoyed the bright spring day But he did not realize it exactly, he just enjoyed it. And walking down the street to the railroad station Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks It was a long time since he had breathed [...]

Here is one of the best descriptions of awe I’ve come across. Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all [...]

What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone? –Bertolt Brecht

In my own work and with others, the issue of being has arisen, specifically the sense of uncertainty about one’s right to be here, to exist. What, you say? How can a person question her right to exist? It’s not like any of us had a choice. Here’s my take on it. Simply not having [...]

Nell Casey, Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression (New York: Perennial Harper Collins, 2002. Pp. ix, 299.) If you are seeking a “Chicken Soup for the Depressed Soul” brimming with uplifting stories, this book is not the source. Unholy Ghost reflects the ordeal of depression via the perspectives of those coping with it. The DSM-IV provides [...]

Secrets nest, waiting behind a humble white door; treasures? or torments? “The Ivy Door” by Monica Rhoades © 2002 / ephotograph.com

I recently wrote about the pursuit of happiness and centering prayer. Andy then asked me to elaborate on where my search has taken me. I read a book by the same man whom I referenced in that post, Father Thomas Keating; here are some thoughts on it. It’s a book titled Intimacy With God, in [...]

In these early hours when sleep has eluded me, I sit listening to the far-off pulse of trains, whistling Pied Piper-like of distant lands and the resurrection of another day.

In marriage there is no escape from the dark corners of another human being. There is no escape from the mirror another casts on my own sorry state. However exalted my intentions — however ready I am to quote some spiritual wisdom from some great author or text — marriage, by design, offers me a [...]