Bowing to What Is
If we’re willing to be changed and if we’re willing to make change, we come alive. Why? Because life is change.
Spiritual Growth
All My Relations
All these relatives contributed to my life. Their stories exert an influence on my story. When I become conscious of them, when I welcome their being into mine, I become them, too, at least in part. An important dimension of myself is returned to me.
Practice, Practice, Practice
What Emily and I want for Gwyn is all that practice teaches: How with every new piece we’re a beginner, how repetition builds skill, how persistence pays off, how talent amounts to nothing without hard work, how to foster a work ethic, how to make mistakes and keep going, how over time and effort what seems impossible becomes possible. How any discipline (music, science, language, faith) opens into ever greater possibilities the deeper we go. How real transformation only happens with practice. How practice becomes the whole point.
Adding to the “Sum of the Universe’s Order”
In our product-driven, results-oriented culture, we like to think creative work gains worth by its impact on an audience. Liz’s story illustrates that who we become for having done the creative work is an equally important “product” with significant “results.”
Prying Open The Crack
If I never notice what’s happening, I can’t choose my response. I’m reactive. But if I first stop and observe, I can be deliberate about what’s next. I’m coming to think that inside this crack lurks the greatest arena of human freedom.
The Aliveness of Completed Work
The unpublished memoir definitely exerts a subtle but important influence on me.
Finding Value in your Creative and Spiritual Endeavors
We write within a vast web connecting those we’ve read and those who’ve come before us and our writing colleagues and our readers and all we love; this web forms the ground of our being, it moves through us and beyond us. It does not discriminate. It simply radiates life, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
The Challenge of Receiving Love
Receiving love is not about our egos at all. It’s deep nurturance, a humble opening of the heart.
Blessed Are…Those Who Move?
It’s as though I’d spent the first forty-five years of my life listening to (and being stirred by) great piano concerts every Sunday morning, and then one day sat down at the keyboard. I’ve no clue how to make music. But I’m learning, and as any musician knows, you learn by practicing.
Finding Acceptance in Surprising Places
What if the new life we look for (in publication, in success) might also be found elsewhere?