MSI Press Blog

  We rarely notice the scaffolding of self until it starts to shift. For years, we live inside a version of ourselves built from roles, routines, and the expectations of others. We are the reliable one. The caregiver. The strategist. The fixer. The artist. The one who remembers birthdays and keeps the household running. These identities feel solid—like bricks mortared by repetition and recognition. But then something changes. A child grows up. A parent declines. A job ends. A body falters. A belief unravels. And suddenly, the scaffolding creaks. What follows isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet. A slow erosion of certainty. A subtle reordering of priorities. A moment when you look in the mirror and think, “I don’t quite know who I am anymore.” This isn’t a crisis. It’s a renovation. Self-concept isn’t fixed. It’s a living structure—adaptive, porous, and shaped by experience. It expands when we learn something new. Contracts when we grieve. Reorients when we choose diff...

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie: -43-   Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there’s love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.   Ella Fitzgerald   Ella Fitzgerald, the “Queen of Song,” had a legendary career that spanned over half a century. Beginning in the early 1930s, she performed with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra and helped to form new styles in American popular music. She was noted both for her vocal and artistic range and for her remarkable improvisational ability. Reacting to the formulaic style of big band swing music, Fitzgerald was at the cutting edge of bebop, the jazz movement that turned away from prominent bass lines and featured extended improvisational solos from instruments like saxophone and clarinet or from the voice in the role of instruments. You can...

  Recently,  An Afternoon's Dictation  (Greenebaum), reached #55 on the Amazon bestseller list of books in ecumenism Christian theology, #170 in Christian ecumenism; and #215 in faith & spirituality. The book has been on bestseller lists many times.  Book Description:  In 1999 Steven Greenebaum felt he'd hit the wall. Fifty years old, he could not make sense of his life or the world around him. For several months he angrily demanded answers from God, if God were there. One afternoon, an inner voice told him to get a pen and paper and write. Steven then took dictation - three pages, not of commandments but guidance for leading a meaningful life.   An Afternoon's Dictation  grapples with, organizes, and deeply explores the revelations Steven received and then studied for over ten years. His sharing is NOT offered as the only possible way to understand it the dictation. It is offered, rather, as a start. The book's sections include deep explorations i...