Tag: transformation

Karma the Boomerang Meets Grace the Stick

Karma the Boomerang Meets Grace the Stick

“He’ll get what’s coming to him someday.”

I overheard this in a conversation at a store today. Apparently this person was rather upset with another person, but at the same time she seemed to take some comfort in her gleeful anticipation of his impending demise.

In the world of Karma, what goes around comes around. And this person just couldn’t wait for Karma to settle the score. As if Karma was some sort of big brother thug with a baseball bat about to smash the headlights out of this guy’s pickup truck.

Karma is a force in this world for sure. It’s a magnetic energy of attraction with a “give and you shall receive” tattoo on it’s bicep. I, Continue reading “Karma the Boomerang Meets Grace the Stick” →

Somehow I Know This Makes God Smile

I’ll admit I’m not that good at praying. Unless you consider asking for things proper prayer etiquette.

For most of my life, praying was the equivalent of sitting on Santa’s lap and providing Him with a list of things I wanted. Some of my more advanced praying techniques included a negotiation of sorts with me telling God what I would do in exchange for me receiving what I was asking for.

Either way, the burden was on God to deliver.

These days, yes, I still want things. But I want something more meaningful than a new bike or the perfect career opportunity. It’s all about Continue reading “Somehow I Know This Makes God Smile” →

Every Day Is The First Day Of Spring

I couldn’t help notice the ugliness, sitting in the drive-thru line waiting to get my morning iced coffee. Winter has finally taken it’s toll on my psyche. As I look around all I see is brown and grey. Barren trees and dead grass. It’s like someone drained all the color out of life. Taking comfort in knowing Spring is less than a week away, I am sustained by it’s promise and expectations.

Spring has always been an uplifting time for me, even during my years of spiritual immaturity. A more enlightened version of me now sees the significance of the season. Rebirth. Renewal. Resurrection.

“To everything there is a season” say the Bible and Pete Seeger. The seasons ebb and flow in and out of our lives on their divine time frame, well outside of our control, each with something to teach us should we make ourselves available to learn.

AWAKENING In each of our lives we experience our own seasons. Seasons of light and seasons of darkness, of sowing and reaping, of laughter and silence. The challenges of life can drop us into our own unscheduled winter, the bitter chill of isolation and uncertainty leaving us emotionally frostbitten.

We may find ourselves in the grasp of such a winter, but how long we stay there is up to us.

Spring is always around the corner.

Spring is a mindset of divine promise and expectations, always readily available should we choose to realign ourselves with our own divine perfection. Any day can be the day of our own rebirth, our own renewal, our own resurrection, regardless of the storms and trials swirling around us at the moment. Spring is available, right here, right now, simply awaiting our decision to claim it.

What in your life is lying dormant, in need of awakening?

The good news is every day is the first day of Spring.

It’s a great day to be you!

The Importance of Being Selfish

Trust me, you want me to be selfish.

And I want you to be selfish, too.

Being selfish doesn’t seem like a good idea. Especially if building community and relationships is important to you. After all, being selfish is about being self-centered. It’s about the “me” and not the “we”. The focus on individual accomplishment and development can’t possibly be beneficial to the collective good of our society.

I disagree.

Continue reading “The Importance of Being Selfish” →

Throwing Stones At God

Surrender has nothing to do with a white flag.

There is a place I get to every now and again. It’s not a place you just happen to go by, it’s much more of a destination. An on-purpose kind of a trip. This place has become a rather spiritual place for me, a church without walls, a place where I ask life’s deeper questions and hope to hear the answers contained within the voices of the crashing waves in front of me.

This beach is anything but pretty. Not very popular, actually. It will never be confused with the elegant beaches found nearby on Cape Cod, nor will it be placed in the same class as Horseneck Beach which sits just on the other side of Gooseberry Island. It feels Continue reading “Throwing Stones At God” →

So, What Will You Bring Into The Next Moment?

The Next Moment can redefine us.

Or go obliviously unnoticed. 

It’s all up to us.

So here we stand on the edge of a new moment. Moments, if defined as seconds, happen 86,400 times per day. We move from one moment to the next almost seamlessly, as one moment morphs into the next, and then the next. The busy pace of life today causes us to misplace entire days, let alone notice a single individual moment.

Transitioning between the moments is done without much thought or reflection. As we blindly enter the Next Moment, we bring with us the contents of the previous moment, which contained the contents of the moment prior to that one. Each moment is a clean Continue reading “So, What Will You Bring Into The Next Moment?” →

The Perfect Gift: 3%

Looking for the ultimate gift this holiday season?

Give yourself 3%.

I just purchased my all-new 2010 calendar. Just waiting for December to end and up on the wall she goes.

It was about this time last year that I purchased my all-new 2009 calendar, waiting for 2008 to run its remaining course. In some ways 2009 was a breakout kind of year. Certain goals, such as starting this blog, transitioned from concept into reality. LivingHalfFull.com has been read in 49 US states (hello W. Virginia?) and in 59 countries around the world. As much as I look back upon the successes of 2009, in other parts of my life, the only thing that changed was my age.

All I have gotten is older.

A STINGING REALIZATION This past year’s 365 days presented themselves to me as opportunities for growth in so many areas of my life. Yet in many areas of my life all I am is just another year older. Years, like life, can easily just slip away, one innocently wasted unfocused moment after another. I’ve incorporated the “I’m just too busy” mantra into my life for years. I’m really quite good at it. But of the 8,760 hours we have in a year, couldn’t I have found even a little time to work on areas of my life I’d like to improve upon?

Continue reading “The Perfect Gift: 3%” →

Counterpunching Adversity

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

— Ben Okri

The human spirit is amazingly resilient, so long as we remember that we are all stronger than we often give ourselves credit for being.

Some days the world just seems like it is out to get you. One test after another, challenging and pushing you. These tests are designed to measure your faith in many things, including yourself and your ability to deal with life’s unwelcomed jabs and uppercuts that can put you on the ropes.

At some point in life we’ve all had to overcome, to endure, to transform…relying upon hidden sources of inspiration and strength that we never even knew we had. Those hidden sources remain within, always available to help us move forward and past that which threatened to bring us down.

At times of adversity and uncertainty, embrace the source of strength which lies within you. Yes, you really are stronger than you think you are.

It’s a great day to be you!

One Common Heartbeat

“God will put a wind at our back and a rising road ahead if we work together as one.”

— Desmond Tutu

It’s amazing what happens when we work together. The synergies created by the whole quite often exceed the sum of the individuals.  Even more so when the work is based in compassion and love.

We’ve all witnessed the results when we collectively come together to aid and comfort those in times of darkness. The unity of the cause creates exponential energies. You can feel the presence of spirit which acts as a divine wind at our back.

Continue reading “One Common Heartbeat” →

Something To Think About…#16

“Every human being’s essential nature is perfect and faultless, but after years of immersion in the world we easily forget our roots and take on a counterfeit nature.”

–Lao-Tzu

Crashing waves, over time, can reshape even the hardest stone. The crashing waves of life can also reshape our perceptions of who we think we are. But unlike a stone, we can restore ourselves to our original “essential nature” of our own perfection…of our own greatness.

It’s one simple decision away.

And you get to decide.