Thursday, February 9, 2012
Those of you who follow the blog know that my daughter died a little over 4 years ago at the age of 31 (see previous post regarding a memorial). Today, I visited her at the lake where the boys and I scattered some of her ashes. I’m not ashamed to talk to her, and today [...]
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Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The prayer below came to me through a dear friend several years ago. I believe it was adapted from an earlier rendition, but will give credit where I found it. My family and I have, from time to time, read this in little pieces around the dinner table on Thanksgiving, passing the paper from chair to [...]
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So Lebron: What you did was no different from what bankers do when they look for ways to get around regulations rather than looking for ways to help people and make a profit doing it. At some point, we need to ask the questions, “What’s rich”, and “what’s enough?” That second question doesn’t get asked [...]
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There is so much to be learned from the Lebron James phenomenon. Since my world is the world of inspiration, Lebron James is to me as many politicians are to cartoonists, “the gift that keeps on giving.” It’s hard not to digress, expand or hyperbolize. It is difficult to avoid following all of the paths [...]
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Last week, I became a bit irritated by the conversation around a conference table of twenty-five business operators. The talk was all about numbers, strategy and organization charts. Not one person mentioned that all of the plans they were cooking up had to be executed by real human beings. This is a great company, but [...]
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
There is little question that Carl Gustav Jung spent his professional and personal life in search of inspiration, not only for himself, but for those he treated and taught. We are about to see a representation of the source of much of what he learned and transmitted to others. I just spent a week on [...]
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Is this inspiration? It certainly felt that way, and I would be surprised if thousands if not millions of Korean kids are not moved to change their lives by this simple experience—not just golfers, but others who have dreams of achieving success that they didn’t quite see as possible before today.
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Saturday, August 15, 2009
What a wonderfully American phenomenon…..town hall meetings, people expressing themselves, even as the majority of people who speak or yell are polarized and have bad information. Opinions are being expressed with little restraint, and many of expressions come from within, sparked by deep emotion. Are these expressions inspired?
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The comments below appeared in the newsletter of A Network for Grateful Living: “More often than not, history takes us by surprise. In 1865, chemist Friedrich August Kekulé discovered the structure of the benzene molecule – the foundation for fields like molecular biology and pharmacology – when he dozed by the fireplace and saw in [...]
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How does one person inspire others We certainly don’t take specific political positions on this blog; our primary purpose is to explore the nature of inspiration. But whether or not one agrees with the political philosophy of Barack Obama, it’s clear that millions have been inspired by his written and spoken rhetoric in the past [...]
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It is possible, according to the sages, that inspiration always comes from outside of what we think of as our “Selves.” Many of the stories of our spiritual traditions suggest that our teachers are alone when the voice of inspiration is heard. Jesus heard the voice of God in the desert. Inspiration is present [...]
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Monday, February 23, 2009
When I was in undergraduate school at Linfield College in the 60s, my cadre of friends studying Religious Philosophy would drink strong coffee and discuss whether the prophets of various religions predicted the future or created it. Since I’m a believer in the power of declaration, I always came down on the side of creation. [...]
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Filed in Inspiration
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Also tagged Barack Obama, consumer confidence index, creation, Dennis Slattery, economics, hope, New York Times, optimism, Pacific Graduate Institute, prediction, Robert J. Shiller, story, the depression, the future, transformation, Yale
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Friday, February 13, 2009
Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke, weighs in on the subject of motivation and inspiration in an editorial piece for the New York Times on November 20. He asks the timely question, “’What’s the Value of a Big Bonus?’” [1] Ariely presents research that suggests that Campbell’s postulate about inspiration (see posting of [...]
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Yesterday’s posting refers to the etymology of the word “Inspiration”…..the impulse comes from the outside, literally in its earliest use, from “god.”In this film clip, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine Monk and well-published advocate of grateful living talks about three dimensions of experiencing the Divine. This clip is from a film made by Luc Sala, www.mindlift.tv, of a [...]
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ask any school kid …motivation is an offering of incentive to accomplish a task. He or she can be motivated, either with a carrot or a stick, to finish a paper or do extra work for extra credit. Ask an office worker or an executive …he or she can be motivated by a bonus to perform more [...]
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
An Op-Ed in the New York Times on Sunday (1-25) by Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges comments on the nature of inspiration, even though they never actually use the word. Atrans and Ginges addressed the Israeli/Palestinian issue, suggesting that conflicts based on a moral principle could not be dealt with in a secular way. Put [...]
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Filed in Book Reviews, Inspiration
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Also tagged conflict, inspire others, Jeremy Ginges, morality, New York Times, peace, Scott Atran, symbolic gesture, symbolic sacrifice, values
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