by David Anderson
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Ernest Hemingway Dear Ernest, You are quite right. Very often, intelligent people are very unhappy—especially if by intelligence you mean only that narrow band of knowing lodged in the brain. For about four hundred years now, at least in our Western culture, that kind of […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Faith/Trust, Grace, Happiness, Letting Go, Love, Reality--trusting it, Suffering, Surrender
“Every email she writes, every conversation always begins with some trouble or difficulty, some illness that’s plaguing her, some suffering in her children, some pain wracking a relative or loved one.” The woman talking to me was describing a friend. “I think if I called her attention to it—if I showed her the emails, she […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Faith/Trust, Happiness, Healing, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Suffering, Uncategorized
Sunday afternoon found me visiting the “Senior Living” facility here in town. As these places go, Atria is the Brigadoon. Sunny, pleasant, watercolors dotting the walls. But even so, women (mostly women, of course) sit along the hallways with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see. I found my way to the […]
by David Anderson 10 Comments Filed Under: Abundance, Adult Spirituality, Death/Dying, Faith/Trust, Fear, Freedom, Letting Go, Reality--trusting it, Surrender, Uncategorized
The single challenge of life is change. We don’t like it, yet we know it is the only constant. Every day we get up and . . . things have changed. Nothing is where we left it last night. Not the kids, not the dog, not the roses in the garden. Everything we had just […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Change, Faith/Trust, Happiness, Now/ the Present, Reality--trusting it
I don’t know if it’s true, but someone once told me that domesticated birds can be trained to sit by an open window—and not fly away. You put their perch next to an open window, but you tie one foot to the perch, so that when the bird attempts to fly out the window, it […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, Faith/Trust, Fear, Freedom, Happiness
Life each day presents us with the unknown. What will happen? What will not happen? Our great fear is simply not knowing what comes next—and our ultimate fear is of the end. What happens when we die? The big fear—of death—is expressed in all the little fears that roil our hearts, the hundred things each […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Death/Dying, Faith/Trust, Fear, Heaven, Hope, Letting Go, Love, Now/ the Present, Reality--trusting it
Why are you stressed? Turns out, that’s the key question. Rabbi Harold Kushner writes of a study, some years ago, at Duke University Medical Center. They gathered up a couple hundred Type A people, the hard drivers who are always on the run, always working, honking at the guy in front of them who doesn’t […]
by David Anderson 1 Comment Filed Under: Community, Daily Practice, Faith/Trust, Happiness, Vocation/ Calling
This week was a rattler. The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon sent a ripple through our nerves, through our families and communities. I heard from people whose children were there, a block or two from the finish line, heard the explosions, ran for dear life. Walked miles and miles to get […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Faith/Trust, Fear, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Love, Mercy