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Keys to Decluttering Our Souls
Decluttering our souls with all sorts of negative thoughts and emotions doesn’t come easily. When I lived in Houston, road rage was… well, all the rage. The news constantly reported women getting out of their cars in order to physically attack one another. In one almost comic plot twist, a man stole the car of one of the brawling women. After all, she left the car running in her haste to bring it home to the woman who offended her. But road rage isn’t that uncommon, although thankfully, yielding to its siren call is less usual. But anger at the jerk who cut in front of you, endangering your passengers…
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Mindfulness and Discernment: Make the Connection
Hannah Whitall Smith, a Quaker from the mid nineteenth century, once said, “Mind the checks.” I respect this advice deeply, mainly as a result of not minding the checks. I once took a personality test that was supposed to determine who in the Bible my personality was most like. Unlike the phony Facebook tests that determine which Disney princess you should have as your maid of honor, this test based itself on the Meyers Briggs personality test. How exactly its authors determined the results for the men and women in the Bible, I do not know. However, my test resulted in a certain similarity to Joshua, who was brave and somewhat…
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Promises You Should Definitely Break
I believe that it is a common phenomenon among parents that if they seem to agree to something, a child will take that as a definite promise. That child will then move heaven and earth in order to hold his or her parent’s feet to the fire regarding the so-called promises. But promises are a serious matter, of more weight than a child’s willfulness. Promises are sacred, after all, which is why we make them publicly very infrequently. Making promises to oneself seems like a good thing. After all, each of us fights the battle of daily discipline. And on the occasion that we fail to live up to our…