Brian Allain

Effort

From “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck, PhD From the point of view of the fixed mindset, effort is only for people with deficiencies. And when people already know they’re deficient, maybe they have nothing to lose by trying. But if you claim to fame is not having any deficiencies – […]

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Types of Idolatry

From “Embracing Your Second Calling: Find Passion and Purpose for the Rest of Your Life” by Dale Hanson Bourke A friend sent me the materials from a Bible study on Galatians she was doing in her church in New York, Redeemer Presbyterian. The study, by Tim Keller, was entitled “Idols of the Heart,” and I

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The Face of Christ

From “Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner” by Frederick Buechner I ENTERED UNION Theological Seminary in the fall of 1954. If anyone had told me as little as a year or so earlier that I was going to do such a thing, I would have been no less surprised than if I

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a pilates for piety

From “Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment” by J. Brent Bill One of my favorite stories is that of St. Ignatius. Born in Spain in the early fifteenth century, the young Ignatius was no model of sainthood. Ignatius was pompous and obsessed with desire to win glory on the battlefield. Rejecting his father’s wish

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my collaboration with aging

From “On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old” by Parker J. Palmer For many years, writing has been one of my ways of collaborating with life. For me, writing is not about filling my head with ideas, then downloading them to the page. That’s not writing; it’s typing. Writing is an unfolding

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