Low trust slows everything

From “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything” by Stephen M. R. Covey Low trust causes friction, whether it is caused by unethical behavior or by ethical but incompetent behavior (because even good intentions can never take the place of bad judgment). Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in […]

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Question: Can everything about people be changed, and should people try to change everything they can?

From “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck, PhD The growth mindset is the belief that abilities can be cultivated. But it doesn’t tell you how much change is possible or how long change will take. And it doesn’t mean that everything, like preferences or values, can be changed. I was once

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Call to Prayer

From “Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner” by Frederick Buechner BECAUSE THE WORD that God speaks to us is always an incarnate word – a word spelled out to us not alphabetically, in syllables, but enigmatically, in events, even in the books we read and the movies we see – the chances

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what I wanted to become

From “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon The likeness – the person I want to become – was the simplest of the three parts, and was largely an intellectual process… I distilled the likeness of what I wanted to become:

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how to read a book spiritually

From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird Jean-Pierre do Caussade, in his eighteenth-century letters to those for whom he served as spiritual director, provides specific instructions on how to read a book spiritually: If you are to get from it all the good

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Limits and Potentials

From “Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation” by Parker J. Palmer Each of us arrives here with a nature, which means both limits and potentials. We can learn as much about our nature by running into our limits as by experiencing our potentials.

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The Need for Self-Reflection

From “What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman” by Lerita Coleman Brown Disentangling what we are told about ourselves from what resonates inside of us requires ongoing self-reflection. “Women without children are abnormal.” “Black people aren’t smart enough to complete graduate school.” “I wouldn’t live in that neighborhood.” These are but

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