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Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper: The Spirit of the Season

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. — Mark Twain And so it begins… The holiday madness. The holiday rush. Everywhere you look, you see ads for this and that. Must buys. Must haves. Must gets. I, for one, find it all to be overwhelming. Tha...

How to Give Ourselves The Gift of Self-Love During the Holiday Season

As we move out of Thanksgiving and into Christmas, you may be feeling the stress and pressure of playing the holiday game. We can easily become lost in obligation, guilt, and meeting the expectations of others in order to avoid disappointing others and to maintain our self-professed lab...

How 30 Days of Kindness Made Me a Better Person

Reposted with permission from SUCCESS magazine I don’t know his name, but his messy, shoulder-length hair hides a pair of hauntingly blue eyes. It’s a warm September day in New York, but he’s sitting under a mountain of ragged bits of clothing, towels and blankets. In one hand, he l...

Remembering Fr. Thomas Keating: A Mission of Unconditional Love Beyond Love

On October 26, one of the great spiritual leaders of our time, Thomas Keating, died at the age of 95 at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts. Like many great masters of the spiritual life, he was known only in a relatively small circle during his life. But he left us a powerf...

Joan Chittister Tells Us How to Partake Of A Full Harvest

Life is a thing of many stages and moving parts. What we do with ease at one time of life we can hardly manage at another. What we could not fathom doing when we were young, we find great joy in when we are old. Like the seasons through which we move, life itself is a never-ending series of h...

Nancy’s Cranberry Fruit Nut Holiday Sauce

YIELD: 25 Servings (2 Quarts) Ingredients: 1 1/4 pounds Fresh raw cranberries (rinse & remove any soft or rotten berries) 1 cup              Pear, any variety (ripe, leave skin on, diced; may substitute ripe grapes or plums) 1 1/2 cups      Apple, ripe, skin on,...

Spiritual Gifts From My Brother Who Suffered From a Mental Illness

In my case, my brother's special gifts helped heal the wounds of our family's traumas with his extraordinary gifts. My father, a World War II veteran, suffered from PTSD decades before there was such a label. Not long after she married him, my mother's schizophrenia became so acute s...

Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper: The Power of Coming Together

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver. — Barbara De Angelis The other day, I woke up to a text from my friend Matthew DiGirolamo. Matthew and I worked together for many years. He’s ...

Alzheimer’s Advocate Nihal Satyadev Tells Us Why It Takes a Village to Care for Our Elderly

It has long been said that it takes a village to raise a child but not much has been said on what exactly it takes to care for our elders. Perhaps, this is because our elders, unlike children who can be seen at our parks, schools, recreation centers, and faith-based institutions, are segm...