CATEGORIES

Visions of Lynn

Is that you, Lynn? I blinked awake. I was lying in bed in my Texas home. Another dream. For months, I’d been plagued by vivid dreams— wood splitting, things coming apart, visions of my parents, and now my cousin Lynn. She’d appeared to me in a flash, like a cameo in a TV sitcom. A beautiful teenager, how she looked when I last saw her. She smiled at me. Then I woke up.

The Firefghter's Warning

When I arrive at the scene, the old frame house on Chicago’s South Side is burning furiously. Smoke and embers dance crazily in the windy winter night. I give the order to unroll the hoses and then dash madly inside. I pull out three people and administer CPR to two of them before the ambulance arrives, rubber screeching on asphalt. When the blaze is finally under control, someone from the department comes up to me.

Scammed!

BEEP-BE-BE-BEEP!

On Her Way…

New Year’s Eve, 1984. My husband, our two little boys and I were visiting my in-laws in Amarillo, Texas. We watched the ball drop and welcomed the new year together.

A Little Slice of Heaven

I sorted through some cookbooks on the kitchen counter. My husband, Steve, worked next to me in silence. We were going through his parents’ farmhouse near Rock Port, Missouri, trying to decide what to do with everything in it. We were overwhelmed by the 60 years of stuff that had accumulated.

TYLER'S BIBLE

I’ve got to remember to call Tyler today.… The thought came to me while I was waking up, still hazy from sleep. Then I remembered— our son was gone.

What Heaven Was Like

“What was it like when you died?” my friend Olivene asked me. Her voice was surprisingly strong, given how frail she looked propped against the stark white pillows of her hospital bed.

Kids' Meal Miracle

It was the week of my last visit with my 10-year-old mentee, Sam. After four years together, he felt like family, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing touch with him. But how could I make sure he remembered me, even after our time together ended?

A Bonded Pair

“You can get a kitten,” I promised my seven-year-old daughter, Cali. “As soon as we get settled in our new apartment.” Her life had been uprooted when her father and I divorced, and I wanted to give her something to look forward to. So one Saturday morning, shortly after we unpacked the last box, we headed to North Bay Animal Services to pick out her new pet.

21 Dreams

Years ago, after reading a book by a therapist and minister who showed that God can often speak to us in our dreams, I began writing down my own. Every morning, while I still remember them, I make a quick note in a journal about what I dreamed.

THE HEARTFUL STRATEGIST-PART 7

So far in this series, RAVI VENKATESAN has introduced the Heartful Strategist framework, and explored how our consciousness results in the strategies we adopt, the choices we make, which in turn have consequences that impact the ecosystem of which we are a part. He has also explored the concept of thought patterns, and learnt how past impressions create these tendencies or thought patterns in us. He reviewed the Heartfulness technique of Cleaning, which uses the power of auto-suggestion or self-suggestion to introduce positive shifts in our subconscious and thought patterns. In the last article we specifically explored Turiya, the level of consciousness that we would consider the ideal for a Heartful Strategist.

The Heartful Chef

VIJAY SADHU is a perfectionist. Whether he is standing in the kitchen of one of his many successful restaurants in the United States, competing with Bobby Flay, or simply sitting in meditation, Chef Vijay determinedly puts his heart into everything he does. The result? Great food that is filled with love, hard-earned and well-deserved success, and a daily effort to show up as his best possible self. Sitting at a table at Fausto’s, Kanha Shanti Vanam’s Italian Restaurant, he shares more about his passion for cooking and his journey of becoming a chef with MAMATA VENKAT, how finding a Guru and diving into spirituality changed his attitude in the kitchen, and how all of his experiences have shaped his most important role: being a parent.

Taste of life

It’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.

Stuffed zucchini

Zucchinis, also known as courgettes, are delicious in many dishes. They are easy to cook and they can be eaten in many ways – raw, baked, stir fried and steamed.

Love

Silently, smoothly love glides.

The New Children

TERRAN DAILY begins a series of articles that offer parenting and teaching tips for today’s children. She sets the scene by explaining the consciousness shift we are undergoing from a mechanistic worldview to a systems worldview, and how as adults this changes the way we nurture our children.

Service, Simplicity & Songwriting part 2

With an Ivy league education, this MTV rap/hip hop star was living the American dream and working on Wall Street when the events of 9/11 unfolded in front of his eyes. Giving up the corporate world, NIMO PATEL decided to pursue his passion for music in LA, but a chronic health issue led him to seek Ayurvedic treatment in India. He stayed back for 6 months to volunteer at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad and continues to this day working with the slum children of the city when he’s not working for his own non-profit organization, Empty Hands Music. In part 2, VANESSA PATEL continues to learn more about him and his mantra “Service, Simplicity & Songwriting.”

JUST THINKING AND FEELING: WHAT IS A MISTAKE?

How do you handle a situation in which someone is so scared of making a mistake in the decision they need to make that they panic? If most of their energy is focused on the panic, then very little is left to deal with the problem that is worrying them. So, let’s see how we can reduce anxiety. The first thing to do is to take a deep breath and relax.

A User's Guide to Living - Part 9

Happiness, Food and Resources

A Love Letter to the Future: Part 1

“What we do now echoes in eternity,” said Marcus Aurelius. The transition of the past few months has been stressful but also a time to remove obsolete habits, to rebuild our priorities, and to explore new paradigms. With this in mind, PURNIMA RAMAKRISHNAN interviewed DR. ELIZABETH DENLEY on our ability to adapt to changes during COVID times. Elizabeth holds a PhD in ecology as well as having spent over 30 years practicing Yoga and studying the yogic sciences. She sees the bridging of science and spirituality as the way of the future.

TIME TO LAMENT

Reconciliation through Mourning

The Fruit of the Spirit Brings Reconciliation

To reconcile means “to cause to coexist in harmony; make or show to be compatible.” If we are to coexist in harmony with each other, we must walk in the Spirit so that we do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. The flesh wants to be in control. This leads to many people being incompatible. But there is a solution: the fruit of the Spirit.

The Ministry of RECONCILIATION

As I was doing research for this article, the following words written by Rev. Brian A. Tillman, chair of the Commission on Religion and Race in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, leaped off the page as I was reading. “Reconciliation is not something we hold hands and pray for God to do — no Kumbaya. It is work that God has given to us to do.”1 This quote is instructive as we seek to understand what it means to engage in the ministry of reconciliation, particularly against the backdrop of the current global protests against racial injustice. Reconciliation is the work of the church.

PENTECOST Reconciles

I know a man whose family moved to the United States from South Korea when he was elementary school age. He has vivid memories of feeling as if something had been torn away; an abrupt disconnection from the culture he loved and the life that made sense to him. He was replanted in a country, neighborhood, and school where everyone spoke a language he had not mastered. He was harassed and mistreated by the other children because he didn’t look like them.

One Child Fund

Indonesia Children’s Home

Kids can serve their world

Shaun McKinley International Children’s Ministries Director CHILDREN’S MINISTRIES

I JUST WANT TO BE SEEN

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (John 14:5–9 NJKV).

Hope For Tomorrow

Paul Holt Director of Finance and Administration STEWARDSHIP MINISTRIES

Genereal Overseer's Global Address

Bishop Sam N.Clements July 11, 2020

Two Meanings of “the Body Keeps the Score”

THE SOUL OF THERAPY KEVIN ANDERSON, PHD