Dr. Howell’s Reflections
Everyday, Dr. Howell writes a reflection, inquiry prompt, and a prayer.
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Divine Timing 2
January 15, 2025
As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was a genius who got things done. Besides being the author of the Declaration of Independence, he was the governor of Virginia, the US ambassador to France, and the founder, architect, builder, and president of the University of Virginia. He became the third president of the United States of America.
Divine Timing 1
January 14, 2025
Let's face it—we need to operate with set times for everything. After all, schedules keep us organized and on point. If our timetables are erratic and unpredictable, we're in chaos. The more people in turmoil, the more chaos there is in the world.
Revival Part 7
January 13, 2025
The Gaither family has made countless and beautiful contributions to Gospel music. For years, I watched “The Gaithers” on TV and was mesmerized by their fantastic musical presentations. One of my favorites was when the entire family sat together singing wonderful hymns. The harmony was beautiful. There must have been 20 or 30 people in all. Through the TV screen, I felt the love within that family, and truth be known, wanted to be a member of that family if only to join in their wonderful singing.
Revival Part 6
January 12, 2025
In these days after the recent passing of President Jimmy Carter, we are reminded of what a great man he was. He came from relative anonymity to win the presidency while having campaigned on truth and a return to moral values. America said “Yes” to him and enjoyed a brief honeymoon with him as President. Yet this was short-lived. Though he made tremendous strides in helping bring peace to the Middle East, his presidency was marked by many problems and failures. Interest rates rose dramatically, gas was scarce, there was tremendous inflation, and the country suffered prolonged anxiety and national humiliation over the Iranian, hostage crisis.
Revival Part 5
January 11, 2025
There is a lot of talk these days about being present. But there's little that explains what it means to be present. Oh, I know it means to live in the moment, but what exactly is the moment? Is then a moment each second or is it longer? How do we define the "present moment?"
Revival Part 4
January 10, 2025
Who would ever have believed that one system of knowledge could show us our tremendous strengths and blind spots in one diagram called the Enneagram? Unlike other personality systems, it is not based on categorizing people and using a static nomenclature to label them. Instead, the Enneagram reflects the truth of nature: that each of us is a fluid and changing being. Therefore, we do not fit into the narrow confines of one label. Rather, we flow through many states of being and psychological structures in our own way and in our own timing. The Enneagram is a sacred map of those states of being.
Revival Part 3
January 9, 2025
In college, there were always parties and fantastic events that had great music with live bands. At such events, I used to dance and loved it. Little did I know then that I was expressing myself through the body center. Then adulthood hit, and dancing gave way to long work schedules and devoting time to our children and their activities. With two little kids and then with teens, Lark and I danced only a few times a year… and I really looked forward to those times. Several years ago, I was introduced to Zumba, a cardio exercise that uses wonderful upbeat music. It is actually like dancing and working out at the same time. I decided to revive my dancing life by adding to my workout life. So now I attend Zumba "classes" about four times a week. Lark and I take ballroom dancing classes and love it. I am so thankful that I chose to revive something so meaningful. Dancing is one of my body's center's expressions of soul — my soulality.
Revival Part 2
January 8, 2025
When we are revived, it means that, in some sense, we have been dead or dying. After we are revived, we live again. In the cycle of life, which includes all living things, there is some form of birth, death, and rebirth. This motif is exemplified by the traditional egg and dart design in many classical moldings and plasterwork. It’s also depicted in the architecture of private residences and public and religious buildings. The egg means life, the dart symbolizes death, and the continuance of that pattern means that life is constantly being reborn.
Revival Part 1
January 7, 2025
The Latin root word of revival is “vivo“ or “vivere“ which both mean “to live.” Add the prefix “re” which means “again,” and we have the word “revival,“ which means to live again. Sometimes we associate the word revive with someone who’s had a cardiac arrest and is brought back to life through cardiopulmonary resuscitation or an electrical shock called defibrillation.
Application Part 7
January 6, 2025
Is there a person who concerns or troubles you? They may be a family member, friend, neighbor, or associate. Are you possibly concerned about their welfare, their decisions, or their chosen pathway? You may be so worried that you lie awake at night thinking about their situation. Maybe there is a nagging feeling you need to do something to help, but nothing you have done works, and nothing you think of would work. We suffer.
Application Part 6
January 5, 2025
When I was in my early twenties, a friend of mine entered classical psychoanalysis because of her anxiety. She was well-to-do, and could afford to meet with her analyst two times a week for four years. She wanted to rid herself of debilitating anxiety. So, she thought if she made sense of all her life’s experiences and complexes, she’d live a much more happy life. I recall her saying that she was always so on edge, that even when something went wrong on the “I Love Lucy" show, she bit her fingernails.
Application Part 5
January 4, 2025
It is tough to apply consciousness when we feel unfairly treated. Life may have given us a terrific blow, or we may have been dealt a bad hand compared to others. Sometimes, we think our particular deficits place us below others. We notice that other people have wonderful attributes we did not receive, so we feel short-changed. We may have had to work hard while things seem to come quickly to others. We say, “This isn’t fair; it isn’t right.” We may have had losses or injuries that others have not endured; therefore, we feel defective or sometimes even “snake-bitten.”
Application Part 4
January 3, 2025
If something is not going right, is amiss, or unsettling, we have choices about handling it. If we take the path of least resistance, it’s usually our ego’s fixation and perception of the world.
Application Part 3
January 2, 2025
The issue of whether or not we apply our higher ideals to our lives is not a new topic. It has been under discussion for centuries. When we do not apply our values to the issues of life, it is because we are absent-minded, out of touch, avoidant, distracted, or enamored with other things. We may be unconscious or, in the worst-case scenario, hypocritical. All of us who fall beneath the saints and angels have been in one of those categories. And this has been true since the beginning of human history.
New Year’s Day
January 1, 2025
As a child, I kept my crayons in an old fruitcake tin. My colors were usually broken, with dull points and peeled-down paper wrappers. They worked, but never as good as the new ones. That’s why I loved to get a new box of color crayons.
New Year’s Eve
December 31, 2024
Endings—today is one of them. It closes in 2024. Whatever the year has brought us, good, bad, and indifferent, is finished for this segment of time. This is a day of demarcation—it finalizes 2024 and opens the way for the next 365 days— another segment of time that is measured by a completion of Earth’s complete journey around the sun.
Application Part 2
December 30, 2024
Our most important project here on earth is to bring our soul to its wholeness. And we do that by growing in consciousness. The more we are aware of ourselves, the world, and the truth, the more we apply that awareness to our concerns, circumstances, and relationships. So, our soul reaches wholeness through the application of consciousness.
Application Part 1
December 29, 2024
Applying our spiritual knowledge to the issues of our lives can be a challenge. We may believe something wholeheartedly yet not actually put it into practice. The ego has a stronghold, and we all too often fall prey to its unhealthy patterns of behavior. Therefore, application of our consciousness must be deliberate and intentional. But once we exercise conscious behavior enough, we become a new creature.