It's the season of reproach--the turn of every new year. Most of us look backward, find what we don't like, resolve to change it instantly, and fail by today, five days into the new year.

NPR recently did a program on resolutions that inspired me. Most of the people who...

As the end of this year approaches, I have made some time to reflect on what I would really like for 2009. Have you? We'll have a new president in a scant twenty-three days. My personal and professional lives grow apace. I wasn't surprised when the idea that snagged me...

Darlings, we are some of the most spiritual people on the planet. You know this. I know this because I live it and so do you. What's my point? I've had it with the outrage about Rev. Rick Warren getting his two minutes in the freezing cold sunshine during the...

I have been a big fan of the work and person of Barbara Winter and her Winning Ways newsletter for many years. I even had the joy of dining with her on one of her many visits to New York City. Barbara is a leading expert on fulfilling work.

Is anyone else having trouble shopping for the holidays this year? I sure am. I'm finding that I cannot buy things. I'm definitely in the spirit of the season, but things just aren't cutting it. For one, I have too many things myself. For two, I suspect that most everyone...

In the early 90s, the progress of the AIDS pandemic looked bleak worldwide. Oh, we knew what the disease was, how it spread, and had some theories on how to manage it, but overall the picture was less than appealing.

Imagine, in the face of the despair, a young pastor...

I have decided, after weeks of non-answers, to go public. Because of a blog post I wrote elsewhere, a peace ambassador, Muhammad Tahir Tabassum, from an organization called INSPAD (Institute for Peace and Development), based in Pakistan has asked me to sit on their International Advisory Council.

I...

I used to have an acquaintance who, whenever I used the word hate in a sentence, would say, "Ouch."

The disclosure that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a.k.a. the Mormons, used its vast religious organization and bankroll to pass Proposition 8 in California has me sick over...

If my email inbox and my voicemail are any microcosmic indication, the United States of America has just begun a new era. "A new world" were the words that echoed this past week. I agree. It is a new world, but only if we make it so.

Frank Rich ended...

I got the sweetest PDF via email this week: a photo of the White House and a photo of Barack Obama with instructions to cut out the photo of Obama and slide it into the White House.

Those of us who have lived and breathed this presidential election cycle from...

I was sitting on my porch just now reading a terrific book when the phone rang. I set the book down and, because it was breezy, put a rock on the cover. The rock is inscribed with the word "Hope."

Hope, of course, put me in mind of Barack Obama...

The greatest mind of the 20th century said, "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."

Barack Obama,...

It is often my wont to scurry through the second half of a good book, so eager am I for the information therein, but with the "Practices" half of Steve Pavlina's Personal Development for Smart People, I couldn't do it.

I so appreciated the application of the seven principles...

In the midst of reading Sue Katz's trenchant book, Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin, I was so chilled that I literally had to plug in a heating pad to read the rest. The facts that Katz has amassed in just four weeks make a Stephen...

Half way through this brilliant personal development bible, Personal Development for Smart People , all I could think was that those running for office ought to read and heed its message. Steve Pavlina has created a truly elegant, simple structure within which humanity can both foster and measure personal...

Dear, dear Bill,

I am one of your best fans. I so enjoy the insight and the controversy you purvey on Real Time. So I never thought I'd have to say this but I have to agree with this week's conservative, Catholic guest Andrew Sullivan--you've become a religious bigot....

This election is not about the woman who could be president, it's about the man who will be president. It's time to put down the fear.

At various times of crisis in the history of this country, people have gathered in spiritual agreement to help make a particular desire become...

Okay, I'm done. I've read the last bash of Sarah Palin that I'm going to read. Don't misunderstand me--Sarah Palin is as anathematic to me as she is to those who are bashing her. I'm not writing for them.

I'm writing for those of us who know how consciousness...

I'm never bored. I can't see how anyone can be bored when we all have our own thoughts to entertain us. But if you happen to be bored, take a page out of Mary Engelbreit's calendar. September quotes Ellen Parr:

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure...

The lone member of a fourth generation of reading women, I never know to where or when a book will take me, ergo, I never go anywhere without one.

My partner and I took the Mass Pike west into familiar territory, entered Northampton, passed the Grecourt Gates of Smith College,...