Is it a spiritual crisis or mental illness?

A spiritual crisis is when someone’s identity, purposes, values, attitudes, goals, or beliefs, are drastically challenged, often by unforeseen events. This results in upheaval and a dramatic change in focus in their lives. It may or may not involve a mystical spiritual experience, and it may or may not trigger a mystical spiritual experience.

We are not in control

We only appear to make plans, choices, or decisions–when really we are merely responding to what is. When you know that, then there is no struggle when things do not go as planned. Only adventure. Only unlimited possibilities.

If the lake doesn’t take it –the wind’s going to break it

“Whhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!” the wind howled directly at us with a strength and length I have rarely known. Since Dad passed beyond this life in May, I have been introduced to family members I had never met before. This summer about sixty of them gathered together for a week of camping on family property on the very edge of Lake Erie for a family birthday and Canada Day. My tent was pitched just a few feet from the last of the green turf, which was protected by massive rocks that shielded it from the continuous, pounding waves. While wind cannot be seen, it’s potency can be known when you stop and look, listen, and watch.

You were Born a Bundle of Joy!

Three times people who turned and looked at me were drawn, with a new smile as broad as mine, to ask if I needed help. They returned to their business in the mundane state they were in before. Looking around the room, scanning the six or so people working, I felt like I was going to burst—I felt like a child with a secret.

Man Makes Plans, and God Laughs

Man Makes Plans, and God Laughs The giant chestnut tree that Anne Frank wrote about in her diary, while hiding from the Nazis during World War II, crashed to the ground this week. While Frank and her family were hidden for more than two years, viewing the tree from the attic was her only respite from the cramped quarters. Instead of cutting-down the fungal-infected, 150-year-old tree for safety reasons in 2007, officials built a steel support that was intended to keep the tree standing for up to fifteen years. However three years later a powerful storm took the tree down. “Man makes plans, and God laughs.”—Yiddish proverb This proves that while we busily make plans, the Universe, God, Source, Reality, …

“Don’t Quit” poem

–My Father wrote this famous poem It appeared far and wide on posters, bookmarks, etc. as “author unknown.” In memory of Lawrence J. Wilcox (1940-2010) It became so popular so fast, that there was no way of correcting this, and truly, Dad was elated just knowing it was helping so many people. With his passing, it is time to let it be known that he wrote it. I actually read this poem before I was re-united with Dad (at age 19), after which time we became very close. He had submitted the poem to a publisher, who never responded, but later used it. From that he learned and shared with me a clever way to protect your work: mail yourself …

You never know and oh what a gift

You never know and oh what a gift When you stop thinking that you know how some experience “should” be, about what “should” happen, about when you “should” arrive, about who “should” or “should not” be there, and what they “should or should not” be doing, then things flow, you are in alignment with life—and suffering ceases. When you respond and not react, when you become natural and spontaneous, the same way life unfolds, life becomes rich with possibilities and adventure. I don’t know how many times I thought I was “late” only to find that I was perfectly on time to not be in a car accident. I have also given-up on the idea (and these are just ideas, …