A Restless Life

This week, I struggled in my first read through to find the common thread that I wanted to write about.  I think part of it was being distracted by the "big" events that are taking place, with God's promise to Abram in the First Reading and the Transfiguration depicted in the Gospel.  And with the weighty bookends on either side, I set my focus into St Paul's letter to look for the link, and, sure enough, there it was. I am unable to fathom being a witness to either of the great events described today, where God comes down to us.  Despite that, St Paul's letter spells out just how we fit into the Divine Order of the world around us.  We are made to be citizens of heaven and to dwell in glorified bodies, not these mortal ones.  And the path towards that is through God - and in the Psalm, we sing that the Lord is our salvation and life.   So with the theme and link established, what can we take away from the other readings, as we are unlikely to experien...

We are going to look into metal wellness as we are stepping into part two of our three-part series.  And piggy-backing on with our last topic, sleep is key to keeping our mental capabilities at peak performance, as the downtime is much needed and required as we continually add, purge, and modify our knowledge and memory databases.  Maintaining good mental health requires us to take care of our cognitive, social, and emotional abilities.  Staying sharp in these areas will aid with keeping our mind sharp for the long haul.  Exercising our brain takes a similar discipline and a targeted approach similar to muscular fitness, and as we age this becomes more important.  In looking to keep cognitive faculties engaged, we need to pull away from our screens and actively use the brain.   This can take form in reading, doing puzzles, or learning a language, where we are using parts of our brains to inform what we’re doing.   Another more active aspect of traini...

As we begin Lent this week, the readings do a great job of providing context to our journey over the next six weeks.  In the First Reading, Moses recalls their journey from the promised land down to Egypt and their return.  An important note was made in his recollection, and that was the call of the people to their God.  As we prepare ourselves throughout this season, we need to call on God to help us and give us strength, whether in our fasting, abstaining, almsgiving, or other actions that we have taken during this time to strengthen our relationship with God.  This message is echoed in the Psalm, as we sing out to the Lord to help us when troubles comes our way.   In the Second Reading, the context of Lent builds as St. Paul reminds us the bigger picture.  God sent Jesus into the world to die for us, and through His Love raised Jesus from the dead.  Keeping this in mind throughout Lent, and the rest of the year, is a great reminder of the great...

As we begin our journey in Lent, I figured I would put a quick note out about the readings today for Ash Wednesday and post my regular reflection tomorrow for the weekend's set of readings.  Ash Wednesday has always had a certain "specialness" to it in my life.  Growing up attending a Catholic school, it was a day that marked a change and didn't come with the pomp and circumstance of the other holy days - like Easter, Christmas - but was strictly about the message of the day.  Even my grandparents, who didn't attend mass often and weren't overly religious, fasted on Ash Wednesday and abstained from meat on Fridays throughout Lent.  It is weird how certain days with such outward signs (the fasting throughout the day and/or receiving ashes on your forehead) has a draw to those who long to be a part of it. However, that is where the readings come in, as we need to have the right conviction and reasons behind the actions.  As Jesus reminds us, it is imperative to ...

To be the best version of yourself, both for you and those around you, you need to feel good about yourself.  Starting from any other position just doesn't make sense.  You may not be in peak health physically, mentally, or spiritually, but you have to be happy with your direction.  These, to me, are the three distinct components to well-being, and today we’re focusing on the first: your physical health.  A key component to this is having a proactive plan that best suits your goals and gets you to where you want to be.  There are a variety of factors that impact your physical health, but taking the proactive approach to heart, these all fall under my umbrella term of preventative maintenance.  When beginning to assess where you stand and what areas are there for improvement, analyze your habits with regards to diet, exercise, medical upkeep, and sleep. I’m a believer in the old axiom: crap in, crap out.   If you don’t take care to prioritize your nut...