February 16, 2025

It was 1971 and we five young men made a list of things we wanted to experience as we backpacked across Europe. That summer we traveled all the way from northern Norway to Naples in southern Italy. Among the places we visited was Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp in Germany.

February 15, 2025

When I visit my old friend in the memory unit of his retirement facility, he doesn't know who I am. He is around my age, and we have been very good friends for decades. I attended his wedding, and we became fathers around the same time. We shared our faith over the years. He is a wonderful person whose disease slowly took him away from his dear family and from lots of us who cared about him. Ralph, I will call him, is an intelligent man with a varied career and many experiences that make his life interesting and colorful. His most incredible qualities are warmth and knack for seeing the truth. 

February 14, 2025

Fortunately, my treasure chest of beautiful memories is overflowing. In reflection, one such memory lights up the sky of my heart like a shooting star. 

As a child, I always enjoyed my extended family; I loved my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I even loved my aunts and uncles by marriage.

February 13, 2025

When we re-play the movies of our memories, we re-experience emotions we had when the memory was made. Some of us have terrible memories whose emotions sweep over us, sending us into sadness, guilt, grief, anger, and more. Many come in the form of unwanted flashbacks brought on by specific places, people, sounds, smells, and even odors. Emotions that we can’t work through are not healthy for us. But when we work through why the memory is so destructive, it can become an agent of healing and wholeness.  

February 12, 2025

Memories are stored and accessed on three levels: the subconscious, the pre-conscious, and the conscious. All three levels are important. Memories held in the subconscious are not in our conscious awareness. These are forgotten memories that are deposited or stored in our subconscious. Also in our subconscious are memories that have been suppressed and repressed. These can be recalled through dreams, hypnosis, guided imagery, and other means. Memories can be stored in the pre-conscious, a special territory between the subconscious and the conscious. Because pre-conscious memories are just below the surface of the conscious level, they can be re-membered more readily. Memories in the conscious level of our mind are the most readily accessible to us. 

February 11, 2025

Just think about what life would be like if we did not recognize anyone or know where we live. Without memory, we would have no concept of relationships or understandings of consequences. Essentially, we would have no identity, history, or the ability to reason. The memory is exceedingly powerful because it is a library of all we know and believe. Our ego uses our memory to support its agenda, however, our soul views our memories as opportunities for healing and wholeness. 

February 10, 2025

I have a chair whose leg is broken. You can't tell that the leg has been cracked in two pieces and glued back together. The chair has been very sturdy ever since it was repaired. It's never faltered in the 42 years since its "accident" and repair. Every time I sit in it or look at it, I recall a story held deep in my heart. 

February 9, 2025

Walking from my car to the recreational center, four thirteen-ish boys were standing by the bike racks, near the front door. They were talking animatedly. Amid their muffled conversation were spontaneous bursts of laughter. I told myself, "I remember those conversations when I was about thirteen or so — we were learning about ourselves, others, and life. We asked each other questions that we could not ask of our parents or adults. In those conversations, we ‘tried on’ different aspects of ourselves to see what would fly and what wouldn't. We listened to our friends’ stories, learned who they were and how we could relate to them, and we told stories of our own. And we laughed! Oh, how I remember those conversations.”

February 8, 2025

What do we find to be relevant to us? The short answer is anything that helps us is relevant. This would be a straightforward statement to live by, but the clincher is how we interpret the words "we" and "us." Do those words refer to our ego, soul, or both? 

February 7, 2025

Some of us are stretched with too many commitments, but we maintain them even if we lack time. We hang in there because they are relevant to us. When we do as many relevant things as possible, it may feel good that we can keep all the balls in the air. But there is a price to pay. And that price can be our sense of happiness and calm — our physical health and well-being. Even our spiritual growth can suffer. Being stretched spreads us too thinly, and we are not present for any of it. We wonder why our lives are so unsatisfying and exhausting even while we do so many wonderful things.

February 6, 2025

At ICB, we receive many responses to online evaluations from people attending our many events. They are thoughtful enough to take their time to evaluate our conferences, workshops, intensives, programs within intensives, online offerings, and our spiritual pilgrimages, to mention a few. When we ask for opinions and ratings for any given program, we usually receive as many types of views as there are respondents. 

February 5, 2025

Are you perhaps interested in rock collecting, jewelry, Pomeranians, Brazilian postage stamps, heavy metal music, the BBC news, action figures, or satellites that monitor cloud movements? If not, chances are that these topics are irrelevant to you. But some of them may very well be interesting and, therefore, relevant. It just depends on the things that make up our personal worlds. 

February 4, 2025

The word “relevance“ has a curious etymology. Its original Latin root is “relevare,” which means “to lift up again” or “to lighten.” The notion of lifting up or lightening connotes the idea of support. So, if something has relevance, it essentially means it supports something.

February 3, 2025

As living documents, we constantly declare in thought, word, and deed our outward identity and our inner soul. Of course, how much of each we express depends on our connection to the ego and its healthy amalgamation with the soul. And this connection is composed of a different algorithm for each of us.

February 2, 2025

Every one of us carries some form of documentation that confirms our identity. In movies, TV, and books, some well-known lines are: "Show me your ID," "Get out your papers," and "Have your passport ready." For many of us, our driver's license is our most ready form of ID; for others, it is our social security number or birth certificate. 

February 1, 2025

An authentic proclamation is a serious and formal announcement. It is a no-nonsense expression. My grandmother, who was born in 1892, used a colloquial expression of her day that I will never forget: It was, “Well, I declare.” She and others said this when they heard something surprising or unbelievable. When they said, “I declare,” it meant they declared what they heard as believable, valid or true.

January 31, 2025

A proclamation is a type of document. The first proclamations affecting our country were by King George of England. After our independence, proclamations were made by George Washington and every American president since. President Eisenhower wrote a proclamation admitting Alaska to the United States. And possibly the most famous proclamation in American history was issued by Abraham Lincoln — "The Emancipation Proclamation." 

January 30, 2025

Most documents hold true through different eventualities and scenarios. Their intentions and purposes stand throughout many seasons, generations, and eras. Our lives as living documents contain the repertoire of our possible responses to all of life’s eventualities. No one can change a legal document unless authorized. As living documents, we must approve any changes in our responses or deletions of responses.