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. -6-   Although the spiritual dimension is always present, people are not aware of it. If we think of this in terms of images, we can say we have a vintage wine cellar, but we rarely drink from it. We have an interior castle, and we seldom visit it. There is a treasure buried in our field, and we do not know how to unearth it… The distinction between the presence of the spiritual and the awareness of the spiritual is foundational in spiritual teaching and sets in motion the spiritual project. We are asleep, and we need to awake; we are blind, and we need to see; we are deaf, and we need to hear; we are lost, and we need to be found; we are dead and we need to come back to life. All these images point to the spiritual venture of becoming aware of what is there.   Jack Shea   You are alive as you are aware of what is there. ...