Category: Monthly Missives
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Distraction’s Foil
Part 3 of 4 – Educating Our Desires 7. Educating Our Desires “We will have to account to God for all the good things our eyes beheld but which we refused to enjoy.” -Rabbi Arikka (quoted by David Schnarch in Passionate Marriage) Nothing moves us like desire. Wanting, craving, needing, and deep longing take us…
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Distraction’s Foil
Part 2 of 4 – Practicing Meditation & Living Mission-Driven 5. Meditation Taking your seat and coming into being, rather than doing, is a radical act of sanity and a radical act of love. -Jon Kabat Zenn The truth is that distraction is an internal reality, not an outward event. Both Jesus and Peter stood…
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Distraction’s Foil
Part 1 of 4 – Scripture, Prayer, Sacrament/Sabbath, & Temple “For the Spirit…gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” (2 Tim 1:7 NIV) Truly, no work of art has impacted me more than Albrecht Dürer’s Knight, Death, & The Devil. I still own the humanities textbook in which I first saw the magnificent engraving. Take a…
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Racked & Distracted 3 – Brain Mush
“Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care’ll kill a Cat, uptails all, and a Louse for the Hangman” – Cob, a character in playwright Ben Johnson’s 1598, Every Man in His Humour (Later, “Curiosity killed the cat.”) Brain researchers have determined that the fall-out from distracted minds is worse than we might think, involving more than just missing out on…
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Racked & Distracted 2 – Diversion
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti In a way, we have become like the children of Helm in the story of the Pied Piper, drawn not by profundities but by curiosities, and there are so many of them! Today’s diversions are particularly insidious because they are…
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Racked & Distracted 1
“Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold!” (Isaiah 49:18) In a striking visual critique, Norman Rockwell’s Lift Up Thine Eyes depicts New York City’s majestic St. Thomas Cathedral towering above the city sidewalk, impossible to miss; but those passing by, virtually on its doorstep, missing it entirely. Shoulders hunched, heads bowed, and gazes cast groundward, pedestrians shuffle by looking woeful…
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Racked & Distracted – Intro
This post is in three parts. I feared that because of length, few would venture to read. In truth, the entire post could be read in 15-20 minutes, but can we concentrate that long these days ;)? In any event, for those who would like to spread it out, you may consume it in parts: Part…
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Divine Paradigms
“For the Lord seeth not as man seeth…” (1 Sam. 16:7) – Why This Blog – See that? Don’t miss it…look up again. THAT is why I am writing this blog. It is for them. (Mosiah 4:14-15; D&C 68:25-28; Moses 6:57-58; Ps. 78:4-8; 2 Ne. 25:26; see TG Family, Children, Responsibilities toward) I have very little literary gift, much less time, and even…
Holy Envy 