Once I did a post on the emotion anger . To this day (with the exception of a blogjacked post ), it holds the record for the most comments. People had strong feelings about anger . They also demonstrated fear, confusion and guilt. From the way our culture deals similarly with sadness, I'd say we're a people who haven't embraced the gift of emotions. Instead, we're tempted to distract ourselves or medicate. Alternately, we could see our anger, sadness, fear and so forth as gifts— signs that show us where we need to walk. Often these emotions speak most strongly to us in dreams ...
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On July 4, 2008, my mom celebrated arriving in America 45 years ago! When my dad came here the first American thing he saw was the Statue of Liberty. How's that for an impression! The story they have is pretty amazing, I think. I can only imagine how they must have felt being kids in a new country and having to start a new life. The closest I've come is moving to a new city and that was challenging enough! Independence means many things - her story highlights the physical aspect of being able to leave an oppressive government and begin a life with ...
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This past week, I began trying the advice I gave myself in The Gift of Sadness : spend more time in God's presence, with his creation and with people. I spent time reading my bible out in my Secret Place. I started reading every day to my kids, a poignant and humorous chapter book called The Chicken Dance . Reading this book is a form of being with my kids (how they love to snuggle and laugh together!). It's also part of my effort to mix it up with regards to what I read (I tend towards serious things and this can get overwhelming ...
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Sometimes we do things that turn out to be a bit odd and not what we’d intended. An idea seems absolutely terrific in our own head but then when we work to give it a shape in the outside world, we get quite defensive when people suggest the idea needs tweaking. Government is an easy target for examples of odd implementation. Nevertheless, one example I came across today deserves a mention. Dubai launched its first Metro a couple of months ago to tackle the enormous problem of traffic congestion in the city. It’s not fully built yet but there are a number of stations ...
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I’ve always been a bookworm and I have thousands of books – fiction and non-fiction. Recently my husband observed I had a lot of unfinished books lying around. “Huh?” I said. I hadn’t noticed this but for many months, I’ve been leaving the last chapter of every book unread. The book simply “fizzles out” when I get near to the end and I start on a new one. I thought this was very curious but didn’t think anything of it until I suddenly remembered a two minute “event” that had happened a year ago. I was getting on a plane holding “ The Tao ...
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