What Life’s Story are You Writing?
If your life were a story, what would that story be about? Nothing like a deep question to start us off, right? What got me thinking about this is a couple of things. As I record this episode of 99,…
How to Care for Your Soul
Do you have one of those people in your life who will sit you down when you need it? I didn’t think I did until one day, he sat me down and said, “Andy, in Spanish, we have this saying…
The One Thing to Remember when Life Gets Tough
Think of a time you felt aware of your good fortune – or of being given a gift. I don’t mean aware, like “oh, someone just handed me this gift and so I’m aware of it.” I mean the kind…
Wake Up to the Abundance All Around You!
The bounty of the harvest can be seen at the bottom of the well. This is an adage I found in a Sufi book I consult often called, “Physicians of the Heart.” This week we’re exploring bounty or abundance of…
Rediscovering God through Your Desire
In Arabic there is this word, Ya Wadud, which translates as Divine love. To me, this kind of love is the most powerful, least disguised, and even a little scary. The kind of love this is talking about includes sexual…
Some Advice from Job about your Suffering
This week’s message is just for you if you’ve ever wondered why bad things happen to good people. It’s inspired by the Arabic Ya-Adl, meaning something like just mercy, but in a meta sense that also is about balance, and…
The One Person You Must Meet
I want to share one of my favorite stories. I know it from the Taoist tradition, though maybe it has other roots as well. There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his…
Tending the Garden of Your Soul
I grew up on a small farm in the U.S. That was a long time ago, but I still remember like it was yesterday. We had a big garden and I was given a little corner of it for myself.…
Discover the Patience of an Ant
Are you always setting goals? Always striving for something? Are you certain that you’re ALMOST THERE, and when you finally get that one thing or do that one thing, THEN you will have arrived?? No? Good. Because that makes one…
Aspire to Kindness like Dumbledore
I’m speaking to the part of you that is lonely. The part you don’t let anyone see because it’s just too painful. I’m talking to the part of you that was unkind, or dishonest, or hateful. I’m talking to that…