Initially when I wrote this essay, it was as a goodbye, for now. Goodbye to something I have been working on for 49 days. What an odd thing to say, goodbye to a ritual, a habit, what is suppose to be a program of transformation and growth. It seems like only yesterday I bid farewell to... Continue Reading →
Marital discord and the effects on children. A model for relationship and societal healing. Part 2
Does there have to be marital conflict? It’s fair to say conflict in marriage is inevitable, and it is perfectly normal. Marital conflict is a part of life. One of the oldest and most traditional of the marital vows consist of the famous words, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in... Continue Reading →
Marital discord and the effects on the children. A model for relationship and societal healing. Part 1
Where does one even begin to verbalize the heartache and the outrage of what transpired last week in Uvalde, Texas. Twenty-one lives taken, murdered, the majority, fourth graders, the trauma inflicted on the children who survive and the unimaginable grief and suffering of the parents and siblings of the victims. I had been working on... Continue Reading →
Endure OR surrender? How about endure AND surrender?
I just finished Arthur Brook’s, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. There is some real useful information from his ideas that help explain a lot about transitions. The two intelligences are inversely correlated and seem to shed some light on another phase of life that... Continue Reading →
Surrendering is an option.
Confession: I always thought I had more answers than I actually do. Am I alone with that idea? After all, don’t we all think what we know is accurate, correct, and the right thing to do? If not, why would we do it, think it, or profess it? Nevertheless, that is not an excuse, it... Continue Reading →
Need a healing ritual? Say thanks to the “Mother.” Mother’s Day edition.
I will talk about mother’s in a moment, but first a confession on how I got to this musing. Years back I learned the term Shekinah, also spelled Shechina, or Schechina, referring to the presence of God in the world according to Jewish theology. I continue to hear the term from time to time and hadn’t understood it... Continue Reading →
Ritual~surrendering to it can set us free.
By way of introduction and as I often write in my weekly Shabbat messages: may you be fortunate to find a (positive) habitual practice and/or a ritual that allows you to become the best version of yourself. What do positive habits, and rituals have to do with becoming the best version of oneself? Self-imposed constraints allow flow and... Continue Reading →
One of my ongoing life lessons: when in a hole, stop digging. Oh, and there will always be holes.
Understanding and exploring habits has been my journey. For some, they may say, this is always the journey, and my journey has led me to consider habits in another way. Habits are pieces that make up who we are. Habits can be tough to break and there are many life lessons that can be found... Continue Reading →
Passover 5782 has concluded: are we [all] free?
which person is freeone willing to relinquishall they have attained We live in a culture of slavery. This slavery doesn’t always look like the slavery of physical oppression and forced labor. Although there are places in the world where that still exists. Often, as in the case of Americans and much of the “free” world,... Continue Reading →
Being spiritual and human: the do-have-be equation: Get off the hamster wheel. Part 1
These days it appears that everyone is talking about spirituality, and getting on the spiritual path, and stepping off their current trajectory of work, work, work. What if the human design included a spiritual component, and the object of life was to seek one’s raison d'être, the reason for their existence. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, said... Continue Reading →