Our Most Popular T-shirt design

Of all the wild and wacky t-shirt designs I've put online, this simple Lily turns out to be the most popular.

The Lily, long interpreted as "the Easter Lily," is the symbol of forgiveness in A Course in Miracles.

In an upcoming post, I'll include more about the symbolism of the lily in the Course.

I was raised in a Catholic household. There was nothing extreme about it. Both my parents had been to parochial schools. It seemed as if they had had enough of the church by the time they were grown and had a family to care for. By sending us to church, they were doing what they knew to do.

There was a time when supermarkets offered "an item a week" promotions. Sometimes it was flatware, sometimes it was teacups and dinnerware. I distinctly remember the store offering the Bible in weekly sections. Though it was not an especially religious family environment, my parents bought this Bible in sections. There must have been another Bible around the house, but this Bible would be huge - at least 12 inches by 9 inches and at least six or seven inches deep.

I was ten or eleven years old at the time and, when this huge Bible was completed, I made the declaration that I would read the whole thing, cover to cover. I started at the beginning and read through Genesis. I did the math and figured that people lived to be 700, 800, or even over a thousand years old. Until God said, according to this Bible, that people could live only one-hundred twenty years. Sensible, I thought. But making the lives shorter meant more begets, and when the begetting seemed to go on to naming all the generations that ever lived, the ten year old that I was then stopped reading.

I came back to it. Somehow, just a couple of years later, I was the top student in the religious studies class (called catechism in the Catholic Church). And again, at 20, I was touched by the Bible. This time it was with the New Testament, and kept what I read in the back of my mind like a thread back to something I knew about myself, but did not discuss it with anyone.

I wrote about some of these early experiences in the post about My Jesus Year. In that article, I mentioned once asking someone about the Jewish holiday of Passover and was told, "You're a Jew, you should know this. Jesus was a Jew." Yes! I want to Read the rest of this post ...

Create your own St. Joseph Day Tradition

The feast day of Saint Joseph has a strange history of changing dates according to the whims of Popes. Originally, it was a day declared in honor of Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus. As the story goes, it was a busy time of year when the couple set out on the journey to escape the mass killing of babies by King Herod. Joseph and Mary were turned away at the door of several inns until finally one offered shelter in the stable.

St. Joseph's Day is traditionally celebrated with acts of kindness, and is observed on March 19th, however, the Pope still allows the celebration to take place on another date if March 19th falls within Holy Week (the days surrounding Easter). Saint Joseph Day is celebrated in pockets around the world where there is a large Italian demographic. Originally a religious feast day, these celebrations have become community-wide events in those areas.

~ Yes! I want to Read the rest of this post ...

Bertrand Piccard next adventure: Solar Flight around the world

In a hot air balloon, Dr Bertrand Piccard circled the world. He, and partner, Brian Jones, did this in twenty days in 1999. The trip broke records and was called the "last great adventure of the twentieth century." But that's not all.

What I found most interesting about Bertrand Piccard's TED Talk (below) is how Piccard expressed the adventure of the balloon flight as metaphor for his spirituality. The title of one of his lectures is called, Adventure is a state of mind: the metaphor of the first around-the-world balloon flight.

Bertrand had an interest in human potential before he embarked on the balloon flight. He was influenced by his mother's interest in philosophy and spirituality. He became a doctor specializing in psychiatry and psychotherapy. His father and grandfather were adventurers. His father reaching the deepest waters of the ocean and his grandfather being the first to reach the stratosphere in a balloon.

In this metaphor of life, the balloon is prisoner of the air currents, just as man is prisoner of his convictions, problems or fate. But in the same way as a balloon changes altitude to find the currents that will drive it in a new direction, man can rise professionally, psychologically, philosophically or even spiritually, to become responsible for the direction of his life.
- Bertrand Piccard

~ Yes! I want to Read the rest of this post ...

We are what we choose to think.
- Louise Hay

I met Louise Hay in the mid 1980's. I'll always remember her warm and true presence. I was teaching a class called The Onward Path at the time and using her book, You Can Heal Your Life, as the guide for the class. I had come up with the idea for the class just before her book came out. When I met Louise, I told her that I was using the book in the class. Shortly after that meeting, Hay House sent me a case of the books.

This link takes you to a video interview with Louise Hay on PBS

Garry Tan, a co-founder at Posterous, found a study by the American Psychological Association and posted an article with a similar title, You Are What You Think. So science is catching up.