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From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird Through a series of circumstances, conversations, and contemplative impressions over a six-month period, I became acutely aware that my desire to live and work with the poor in Latin America was not matched with a concrete

From “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck, PhD Who’s right? Today most experts agree that it’s not either – or. It’s not nature or nurture, genes or environment. From conception on, there’s a constant give-and-take between the two. In fact, as Gilbert Gottlieb, an eminent neuroscientist, put it, not only do

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

From “Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner” by Frederick Buechner I hear the creaking of a chair being tipped back on its hind legs. “Sir, this is all fairly effective in a literary sort of way, I suppose, but since you have already put most of it in a novel. I’m afraid

From “The Discipline of Inspiration: The Mysterious Encounter with God at the Heart of Creativity” by Carey Wallace Many artists are skeptical of the claim that inspiration is a product of the unconscious mind. “I dislike learned talk about ‘the unconscious,’ which always seems to imply that the very intelligent are able somehow to know

From “Wired to Lead: Being the Leader the Church Didn’t Think You Could Be” by Suzanne Nadell What can the church do? Well, I believe we must start by talking about this. Nothing will happen without taking that first step. Honest conversations will be uncomfortable, and that’s okay because discomfort leads to vulnerability and transformation.

From “The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action” by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson. Here’s what happens. Our self-sufficiency, which works well because we are smart and talented, keeps us from vulnerable commitments to others, pushing us into lonely emptiness and isolation. Our certainty, reinforced through a thirst for psychic security, becomes rigid and judgmental, repressing

From “Walk with Me: A Journey through the Landscape of Trauma” by Ellen Corcella The divorce left me to ping-pong between my parents. I was the telegraph line through which they communicated their resentments, anger, and irritation. I was the weapon each used to retaliate against the other. I was referee, negotiator, and confidante. Sometimes

From “Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice” By Terrence Lester, PhD The interplay of poverty and racial injustice introduces an additional layer of complexity to the struggle of someone navigating all this, often placing them at a significant disadvantage when it comes to educational achievement. It creates the type of barriers that