by David Anderson
Today—February 2nd—is a big turning point. It’s a great cross-quarter day, midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. In ancient, agricultural societies it was regarded as the beginning of spring—the time for first turning the soil in preparation for March planting. There were prayers and rituals centered on the fertility of the […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, LIght, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing, Waiting
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” -Psalm 90:12 I have done the math, and the number of my days since birth is 21, 328. (It’s easy: go to numbermydays.com and enter your birthday.) I don’t suggest you take the Psalm literally, but it’s not a bad […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Breathing, Daily Practice, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation
About now, many of us are looking at our New Year’s resolutions and wondering what happened to our resolve. I don’t care much for resolutions, since they are mostly attempts to arm-wrestle small problems into submission without having to look plainly at one’s life. I like “priorities” instead of “resolutions.” Which reminds me immediately of […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Daily Practice, Faithfulness, Happiness, Now/ the Present, Patience
Where is your life taking you? That’s the question I heard Parker Palmer asking. The Quaker wise man was being interviewed. “I had to ask myself,” he said, “where my life was taking me, rather than just where I was trying to take my life.” It’s important to try to take your life somewhere. Without […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, creativity, Faith/Trust, Freedom, Grace, Happiness, Letting Go, Surrender, Vocation/ Calling
We expect monks and mystics to tell us how important silence is. Gordon Hempton is neither of those. He is an acoustic ecologist, someone who studies the sound of the natural world and seeks to preserve it. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence, Hempton says there are less than a dozen places left […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, creation, Daily Practice, Listening, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Silence, Uncategorized
I received this alert, and it’s the kind of warning that–in this Advent season–I am delighted to pass on. Symptoms of Inner Peace Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Breathing, Daily Practice, Faith/Trust, Fear, Forgiveness, Happiness, Letting Go, Love, Now/ the Present, Patience, Surrender, Uncategorized
One of the lessons we learn as we grow older is to cherish life every day, and not to pin our hopes on a future that never comes. We all believe in the myth of future bliss. Americans especially swear by this one—that with a lot of hard work and sacrifice we’ll one day achieve […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Gratitude, Happiness, Love, Now/ the Present
One morning a blood vessel exploded in Jill Bolte Taylor’s brain. She felt a deep pain—like a head freeze from eating ice cream—behind her left eye. Slowly she watched as her brain functions shut down—speech, cognition, motion. Jill was a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist—a brain scientist, observing a brain undergoing a stroke . . . from the […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Daily Practice, Happiness, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Seeing, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized