Dr. Howell’s Reflections
Everyday, Dr. Howell writes a reflection, inquiry prompt, and a prayer.
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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.
Imagine Part 7
December 28, 2024
My friend, George Fountain Cox, left this realm seven years ago. He was 88, a clinical pastoral counselor, and a fantastic artist. As with most artists, George began painting inanimate objects or still life. Then, it progressed into more abstract and impressionistic works. George was a regionally known watercolorist and collage artist.
Imagine Part 6
December 27, 2024
As a child, I would often sit in a giant Mimosa tree in the backyard. Though I knew nothing about holy places, thin places, or consecrated ground, it was magical as if in another world— if you stroked the Mimosa’s leaves they would slowly fold up like they were going to sleep. And in the spring, its puffy blossom looked like hundreds of little pink feathers with white tips and an amazing fragrance! You could twirl the blossoms on your face and they softly stroked it. After springtime, the blossoms died, and the tree bore beans well into the Autumn. The green pods hung there swaying in the breeze.
Imagine Part 5
December 26, 2024
Imagining something in a spiritual context is a spiritual practice and differs substantially from everyday imagining. We can compare spiritual imagining to typical imagining. They are comparable to walking on the holy ground versus on a busy sidewalk.
Christmas Day
December 25, 2024
This is a day of soul— of light—of giving and receiving—of celebrating the birth of Jesus. In the soul, every present moment bubbles with fresh arisings. What gifts of soul await you at this moment—in all the moments of this day?