MSI Press Blog

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -17-   I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.   Diane Ackerman   Psychologists love to talk about depth. Depth psychology. Deeply-hidden instincts and motivations. Deeply-held values. Fine, but in a world with three (or more) dimensions, there is also length and width. Between the two, I find that width is the far more intriguing. A widely-lived life invites and embraces passion. Enthusiasm. Sometimes, exuberance. You can be faithful to those deeply-held values, but you are also entitled to be passionate and to experience the thrill of being alive. The 2007 film,  The Bucket List , popularized the title phrase and made it part of everyday common language. Lead characters played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, both terminally...

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -11-   You get this one life… If you do not have your deepest desires in sight-- and it’s interesting that the word “desire” comes from the Old Latin, meaning “of the stars--” if you do not keep your star in sight, you’re in danger of losing everything that is precious to you, and living out a life that is like a shell.   David Whyte   Remembering who you are is not an idle or academic exercise. You get this one life. Your desires are  of the stars.  Embracing who you are has a sense of urgency, of eternality. What do you do that is  of the stars?  What choices do you make that align with the desires, the values, and the passions that are sacred for you? Certainly, visioning is a part of the process. If your life is about compassion, you look for places where you can embody kindness and generosity. If your l...

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -5-   Don’t ask what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.   -         Howard Thurman   Several years ago, I was in Chicago for a professional conference. Life-long baseball player, fan, and addict that I am, I never pass up an opportunity to see a major league game on the road. I took the Red Line to the Sox-35 th  Avenue stop for U. S. Cellular Field (where the White Sox play; it will always be “Comisky Park” to me) and got off with the crowd. On the platform was a small, thin, elderly man with Chinese features, playing a two-stringed fiddle (which I later learned is called an erhu) with the accompaniment of a small CD player. The music had a beat to it and was really moving along. His eyes were closed, ...