The Harried Mystic

07/13/2024

Misspeaking Is Human Ok, our President trips over names and interrupts his own thoughts at times while speaking. He has done this for decades. People much younger do the same thing and Trump does it often. Clearly, the President is not a smooth and polished orator. But, he is an honest man of goodwill and rock solid faith with deep experience and a clear command of foreign policy....

Misspeaking Is Human Ok, our President trips over names and interrupts his own thoughts at times while speaking. He has done this for decades. People much younger do the same thing and Trump does i…

07/05/2024

Once upon a time, we happened. In quick order, we learned language and its rules and built a sense of self and of our relations to others. From the complex montage of pleasures and pains, we wove a…

07/05/2024

Once upon a time, we happened. In quick order, we learned language and its rules and built a sense of self and of our relations to others. From the complex montage of pleasures and pains, we wove a guiding framework replete with stunning dramas of neurotic and sometimes psychotic features. Pride of authorship quickly sets in along with our fierce defense of the narratives we build to make sense of it all....

Once upon a time, we happened. In quick order, we learned language and its rules and built a sense of self and of our relations to others. From the complex montage of pleasures and pains, we wove a…

06/25/2024

In Praise of “Falling in Love” This is an apt expression and most of us have experienced this ( if we are fortunate).

We “fall” and the experience is overwhelming. We did not … https://harriedmystic.wordpress.com/2024/06/19/in-praise-of-falling-in-love/

06/19/2024

In observing the behavior of toxic leaders and their unthinking followers, both Otto F Kernberg and C.G. Jung had much to say about the impact of malignantly narcissistic leaders on large group beh…

11/17/2023

The Chemotherapy Infusion team at Advent Health in Apopka Fl exudes Lovingkindness. In a world torn by daily news of hatred and violence, it is reassuring to the see the living spirit of love modeled in so compelling a way: the best of what it means to be human.

Surely, this is the antidote for the accelerating pandemic of xenophobia and brutality. May we model the way as the only effective vaccination against evil that is so desperately needed.

11/10/2023

My favorite source of books worth reading here in Florida is the section labeled “ Banned Books”.

Freedom is best served by fearlessly examining all ideas through the lens of critical reasoning. What threatens our democracy and freedom is being guided instead by unthinking ideology.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a must read in our times.

03/24/2020

I awoke to morning prayer again informed by Dante’s poetry: “ The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, inferno-canto-vi-105 A profoundly Franciscan idea! Over the weekend, my wife and I both became symptomatic and await testing ( whenever that becomes available). We may have a touch of seasonal flu or a cold or something else: worrying to be sure. [ 105 more words ]

I awoke to morning prayer again informed by Dante’s poetry:  “ The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, inferno-canto-vi-105 A pro…

03/22/2020

A little cumulus with wisps of cirrus, March 22, Minneola Florida We’ve all played the cloud game as we watch the changing forms we liken to different animals. Shall we take it up a notch? Beyond looking for imagined likenesses, there is the real science of clouds and how those shapes act as signs of what’s happening at different levels of the atmosphere. [ 220 more words ]

A little cumulus with wisps of cirrus, March 22, Minneola Florida We’ve all played the cloud game as we watch the changing forms we liken to different animals. Shall we take it up a notch? Beyond l…

03/22/2020

I have embarked on a personal reading project during this Season of the Covid -19 Pandemic: revisit the Franciscan and Franciscan-inspired classics. One can tackle such a project in a number of ways, but I’ve chosen to do so alphabetically by the authors last name. So, I began today with Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy Getting reacquainted with this narrative poem was a treat and an inspiration for our times. [ 138 more words ]

I have embarked on a personal reading project during this Season of the Covid -19 Pandemic: revisit the Franciscan and Franciscan-inspired classics. One can tackle such a project in a number of way…

03/20/2020

Disciplined reflection is foundational to what it means to "examine ourselves". We turn the gift of reason inward to check on the state of our souls as a counterbalance for what we necessarily execute on autopilot in our ever busier lives. The central spiritual challenge we each have as 21st Century pilgrims of the Way, is to uncover our True & Higher Selves. [ 620 more words ]

Disciplined reflection is foundational to what it means to “examine ourselves”. We turn the gift of reason inward to check on the state of our souls as a counterbalance for what we nece…