When I was growing up, my brother and I read comic books. We read Superman, Batman and even Archie. If you’re of my generation, you may have done the same thing. Perhaps you recall that these comic books had advertisements in the back that were trying to sell you things like Sea Monkeys and x-ray vision glasses…
Meditation for Health
If you thought a good night’s sleep and proper diet and exercise were all you needed to be healthy, a study from Harvard Medical School shows that meditation (prayer) can also change us for the better on a cellular level. Scientists have long agreed that meditation reduces stress and illness, but they were never sure why. This study finds the reason for the benefits. Regular meditation causes cellular change by basically turning on clusters of “good” genes that make us healthier while turning off clusters of “bad” genes that lead to disease.
In a study reported in Yoga Journal…
Love Is the Way She Walked in Gratitude
My friend of forty-four years made her “journey without distance” into the eternal life that we all share on October 19, 2021. At the age of 90, Judith Skutch Whitson was, as my dad would always say, 90 years young. And, that statement truly embodied Judy. Even though she openly shared how her body wasn’t like it used to be, it did not diminish her quick wit and infectious laugh. She remained…
Healing for You in 2022
A Course in Miracles invites us to “make this year different by making it all the same.” It asks us to let all our relationships be made holy for us. This is its advice on how to make the year different from all our others: to consistently allow the Holy Spirit to heal our relationships for us.
You may think: “What are you talking about? All my relationships are just fine.” But let’s remember…
I Am Here to Comfort
Each year when my brother and I were growing up, my mom would hang our stockings on the mantle. She had a stocking made for each of us with our names sewn on in a fancy stitch. They were made a very long time ago, when this type of specialty work was very precious and not found in every store or mail order magazine as it is today. Those stockings always represented to me my parents’ love for us. Even though they did not have a lot in the way of finances when we were young, they always made sure we never felt lacking. We didn’t have a lot of things, but we thought we did, and it was our parents’ love that made the ordinary seem extraordinary….
To Heal
“Always look for the helpers.” I remember hearing this when the documentary about the life of children’s television innovator, Mr. Rogers, was released in 2018. Entitled Won’t You Be My Neighbor, the film highlighted the incredible career of a man whose goal was to heal a hurting world by making each child feel whole, valued, and complete right now. He would often say, “I like you just the way you are.” His message was that you don’t need to wait for some future time or when you get older to be okay. You are okay right now. And when times are tough, or things are scary, focusing on those who are helping others or being helpful to another helps you. As the prayer in A Course in Miracles says…
Preparing for Advent
The four weeks before Christmas are typically known as Advent. It is considered a time of preparation for the birth of Christ. Therefore, let us prepare for the birth of Christ by preparing our own inner garden. Today let us begin by noticing the weeds of fear that are choking the seeds of healing in our lives and make a conscious choice to bring them to the light of true healing, to the Holy Spirit, and allow Him to simply look on them. We don’t have to worry about how or when He will heal them. We have faith that if we bring them to Him, He will do the job immediately…
A Recipe for You
My mother and grandmother left me their old Betty Crocker cookbook with a number of favorite recipes dog-eared and marked as particularly delicious. They even included a few handwritten cards with special recipes that had been given to them that were surefire winners. Now, I must be honest with you, I am really not a cook. While I do like cooking, many of these wonderful recipes require flour sifters, double boiler pots, and all sorts of gadgets and gizmos that were easily found in their kitchens, but not mine. But, I can still appreciate their willingness to pass them onto me, and I do treasure them. Like a wonderful recipe, however, it means nothing if you never make it.
Well, I want to share a recipe with you that is guaranteed to not only make your Thanksgiving delicious this year, but perhaps even transform your life…
Swinging with the Truth
Do you remember swinging on a swing? And the fun of going higher and higher as you tucked your legs under on every backward swing, then thrusting them out on the forward swing?
When our son was little, I recall that swinging was a learned skill. When we first put him in those bucket swings, he squealed with delight as we pushed him. Then he graduated to the big kids swing, where he learned the coordination skills to make the swing work on his own. It was exciting to watch him learn that each backward swing was not a retreat but a momentary opportunity to pump forward, even higher. He always enjoyed every part of his journey on the swing.
I think of swinging as a good metaphor for life…
The Survivor Tree
At the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, there is a tree near the fountains named the Survivor Tree. This tree is aptly named as it survived the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. In October of that year, a pear tree was found severely damaged. Its branches were burned and broken, and its roots were snapped; it was removed from the rubble and nurtured back to health by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. In 2010, after its recovery, the tree was brought back to its original home at Ground Zero. If you look closely at the tree, you can see…