Conventional modern medicine has made great strides, the main progress having been focused on specially formulated chemical substances and sophisticated surgical techniques with their high-tech electronic aids. This has led to some truly amazing advances, but it has also resulted in specialisation and an approach to the whole subject of ‘health and wholeness’ which has been increasingly concerned … Continue reading Why am I not healed?
By Stephen Russell-Lacy. I suppose it takes one to know one, but I admit giving my money away does not come easy to me. It never seems to occur to me to buy an unplanned gift for someone to mark a special occasion. Some of us are a bit stingy and penny-pinching whereas others seem … Continue reading Generous — How can I be more like this?
How would you feel, if, as part of your job, you had to shake hands with someone who probably ordered the murder of your cousin? A similar situation faced the Queen when she met former IRA commander Martin McGuiness. I would not be surprising is she had felt at least a little resentment. The meeting … Continue reading Resentment – How to feel less of it?
There is a cliché which says that there are only two things of which we can be certain in this life, that we are born and that we will die. Yet death is an aspect of life with which it is perhaps difficult to feel at ease. There may be many reasons for that, and … Continue reading How to approach death?
Not everybody wants to be a better person and develop along what can be our hectic journey of life. My cat doesn’t. She’s quite content with the stage she has reached in her life — as long as I feed and stroke her on a daily basis. Nor do those human beings who are uninterested in … Continue reading How to become a better person?
Here is some advice from the 13th century on how to feel more alive in yourself. “Do not look back, my friend no-one knows how the world began Do not fear the future, nothing lasts forever If you dwell on the past or the future You will miss the moment” (Rumi, a 13th century … Continue reading How can I feel more alive?
Do you long for a break from the merry-go-round of deadlines, things that must be done, demands from relatives, children, and the job? Do you often feel that you never having enough time in the day to fit everything in? Is part of the problem that we tend to assume that our well-being depends on filling every moment with some thing? That being less economically active not only stops us getting on in life but also leads to boredom and not keeping up with others? Perhaps this assumption is right, but don’t we sometimes take it a bit too far?
In deciding what to believe sooner or later you come up against something that is greater than yourself. Toddlers make every effort to get their own way but eventually have to submit to parental authority. Young people test their limits climbing mountains or visiting wild places until forced to acknowledge their helplessness in meeting the … Continue reading What to believe – How do I decide?
When I was lent the book Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, I suspected I would have a mixed reaction to it. This fantasy novel is not meant to be taken seriously and has been lauded by many as hilarious. Yet it deals with what I feel are serious issues. It certainly made me laugh, yet in poking fun at religious names and events in the Bible.
General ideas about what is true about life come from all around us — family, the mass media, books. These concepts have often seeped through from current and past thinking for example from politics, philosophy and religion. We absorb such ideas because we tend to be interested in making sense of our lives, why we are here, where we come from, and where we are going, not to mention fathoming the reality of suffering, misfortune, and chaos that we find all around us. But life goes on and we are obliged to make the best fist of it using what values and principles we have learned about and accept. The question arises: Is it better to have conviction or doubt about your ideas?