MSI Press Blog

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -8-   Irenaeus, the great early church father, said the glory of God is a human being fully alive. Now, if you back off from every little controversy in your life, you’re not alive, and what’s more, you’re boring. It’s a terrible thing that we settle for so much less… The greatest pleasure for me was being with black civil rights leaders and followers, because they were so alive. You can be more alive in pain than in complacency. These often very poor blacks in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, were so wonderfully alive, so cheerful, so courageous.   William Sloane Coffin   You are alive as you extend yourself on behalf of something that matters. William Sloane Coffin was no stranger to controversy. He certainly could have led, in his words, a “polite” and “comfortable” life as a clergyman and college chaplain,...

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -7-   People say that what we’re all seeking is meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive so that our life experiences on a purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.   Joseph Campbell   You are alive as you live your own life. There are so many forces that draw us to live other people’s lives. We live in a culture that relentlessly champions the external trappings of success. Newer cars are better than older. Bigger houses are better than smaller. Higher salaries are better than lower. Being one of the vice presidents of your company is better than being among the line staff. Being young and sleek is better than being older and heavy. There is nothi...

  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, as in rever...