Good Clean Reads

One of my regular stops during the week is in the weight room at my local gym. This is a place where I tap into true optimism about humanity. The best days of the week are usually the ones in which I start out early with my new strength- training workout, which I learned from the boys’ athletic trainer at our local high school. Partly, I am inspired by the ways in which, after just a few weeks, I...

Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, discusses happiness and material reality.

Visit TheOpeningDoor.org to listen to the full interview Saturday.

“One day a monk spoke bitterly to the Buddha. All he wanted to talk about was the unbearable sorrows of the world. The Buddha remained silent while the monk talked, then a faint smile appeared on his face. He pointed to the ground below his feet and said,“On this earth I have attained awakening.” -Buddhist Mondo

It is easy to become bitter by the weight of so much unresolved sorrow in life. I...

The mass shootings that are taking the lives of innocent people in schools, movie theatres and shopping malls are occurring at such regular intervals that no matter what side of the gun laws you sit on, we all share a palpable fear of the out-of control vulnerability of living so closely among so many. The mental instability and the anguish that goes unanswered belongs to all of us as we learn...

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”   -Albert Einstein

Years ago I studied the Course in Miracles. Actually, I just memorized the first three pages, which are the 50 principles of how miracles work. You pretty much have to be studying 50 principles all the time if you expect to be able to recall #33...

The New York Times

I remember a few years ago after a huge forest fire ate up a large neighborhood of homes in the Colorado mountains and a small statue of Mary appeared in my inbox. A friend’s friend was passing along this image. Like a sign, even in the midst of profound loss and destruction, what remains is holy, unchanging and somehow protected from the wins and losses that seems to define...

“If you had just one more minute to get a positive thought, that could change everything.” 

This is what I hear myself say at the end of our kickstarter videoas I watch the faces of some of my favorite teenagers flash on the screen. I am moved each and every time I see this video, which tells the story through the kids’ words of why they are spending their weekends moving concrete and gravel....

I live in a rural area of Oregon, so when storms hit as they do here in the Northwest, it is not unusual for my home to be disconnected from the grid for a week or more. It’s a weird thing to live in the middle of the grid, but not be connected to it. In some deep ways your life can’t really go forward. You are in your home, but unable to take advantage of living in it. My memory of it is a form...

Enlighten your perspective on the meaning of your days with Deena Metzger, author, healer and sage.  Each one of us is
living a story that is both a path of healing and a universe that defines us.   Looking at the central questions that define
our stories and our lives is the process by which we come alive and embody our soul.  The purpose of your life is within the grasp of your
story; take this...