“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller It was a remarkable experience to observe my heart on the echocardiographer’s screen. A tiny benefit of having a sudden onset of heart palpitations and the myriad of tests…Continue reading A Letter to My Heart
Category: Religion
A very brief Introduction to Christian Fundamentalism
“There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.” – Bart D. Ehrman This is a REPOST of a blog I wrote a couple of years ago … most fitting at this time of Australian religious and political discussions! There is a danger in assuming that every Christian belief and practice that we adhere to…Continue reading A very brief Introduction to Christian Fundamentalism
The Shepherd’s Psalm
Whether you are a person of faith or not, it is highly likely that at some stage in your life, perhaps at a wedding, christening or funeral, you would have heard the famous Psalm 23: The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,…Continue reading The Shepherd’s Psalm
Lisa’s Story: The Path of Courage
“Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is ‘cor’ – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant, ‘To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.’ Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds.…Continue reading Lisa’s Story: The Path of Courage
What The Sea Teaches Us
“Listening through the heart is not something you must learn to do. It is something you need only reclaim and remember.” – Stephanie Dowrick – I loved going to the sea ever since I can remember. In Germany it was the chilly harbours along the North Sea. The fishermen would sit there like a line…Continue reading What The Sea Teaches Us
The Avoidance Crisis
“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is…Continue reading The Avoidance Crisis
Life’s Most Ignored Partner: Death
“It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever it is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter.” – C.S. Lewis – My sprightly father…Continue reading Life’s Most Ignored Partner: Death
Scars Sealed In Gold
“To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be effort, and the law of human judgment, mercy.” – John Rushkin – It seems that “banishing imperfection”…Continue reading Scars Sealed In Gold
Hildegard of Bingen and her Love Affair with Fennel
“Even eaten raw fennel does not harm the body in any way. In whatever form one eats fennel, it makes us happy, gives us a good skin colour and body odour and promotes good digestion.” – Hildegard – Fennel was a regular star in the meals consumed in my childhood. To this day I can…Continue reading Hildegard of Bingen and her Love Affair with Fennel
The Scarcity of Wonder in our Black-and-White, Know-it-All World
“If I had influence with the good angel who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world would be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life as an unfailing antidote against boredom and disenchantments of later…Continue reading The Scarcity of Wonder in our Black-and-White, Know-it-All World