Brian Allain

Choices

From “On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old” by Parker J. Palmer We have no choice about death. But we do have choices to make about how we hold the inevitable – choices made difficult by a culture that celebrates youth, disparages old age, and discourages us from facing into our mortality.

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Discernment Is…

From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird Discernment is a spiritual understanding and an experiential knowledge of how God is active in daily life that is acquired through disciplined spiritual practice. Discernment is faithful living and listening to God’s love and direction so

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The Five Waves of Trust

From “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything” by Stephen M. R. Covey The First Wave: Self Trust The first wave, Self Trust, deals with the confidence we have in ourselves – in our ability to set and achieve goals, to keep commitments, to walk our talk – and also with our

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“commonplacing”

From “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” by Steven Johnson Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters – just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. The great minds of the period – Milton, Bacon, Locke – were zealous believers

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