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(via Traumatic Grace:)

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Traumatic Grace:

A New Life after Death We are born into this world as unhatched eggs. Society decorates our outer casings, patterns them with expectations of intellect, status, family, and ambition, and tells us we are now secure. We spend a lifetime—decades—frantically guarding and promoting this fragile, artificial perimeter of material assets, entirely oblivious to the stark reality that a closed shell, a…

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(via Shipyard Scars at Sixteen)

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Podcast Episode: Shipyard Scars at Sixteen

Pip: There's a theory that what doesn't kill you builds internal ballast — and RMDell'Orfano has the scar on his left hand to prove it.Mara: This episode follows one through-line: what it costs a society when it stops putting its young people in hard situations, and what history says happens next. Let's start with the shipyard itself.Shipyard Scars at SixteenPip: The post opens with a personal…

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Shipyard Scars at Sixteen

When I was sixteen years old in 1958, I worked in an East Boston shipyard. It was an environment of high-stakes, industrial-grade labor. I stood on the deck of a new hull with multi-ton overhead steel plates swinging into place, dodging the blinding glare of arc welding and the constant hiss of torch sparks. I still carry a scar on my left hand from that jungle experience I describe in my…

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The Forgotten Disciplines of Healing

Why have prayer and fasting largely disappeared from modern medicine and religious life? A reflection on biblical fasting, scientific discoveries, a personal 21-day fast, and the forgotten discipli…

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The Forgotten Disciplines of Healing

Prayer and Fasting in Scripture If you attend church, when was the last time you heard a minister or priest recommend prayer and fasting for difficult physical or mental conditions? When you visited your doctor concerning diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, or depression, did he suggest a seven-day water fast under medical supervision? Scripture repeatedly joined prayer and fasting…

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Against the Current

A reflective meditation on salmon struggling upstream becomes a deeper exploration of human purpose, spiritual longing, and the search for the Source of our Being. Drawing from nature, personal pil…

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Against the Current

Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous Cold mist stings my face beside the river. The smell of wet stone and cedar hangs in the air while snowmelt thunders through a narrow gorge. White water boils and twists beneath dark cliffs, hammering rocks polished smooth by centuries of current. Below the cascading falls, salmon crowd a churning pool. Their slick backs flash pink silver…

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(via The Day my Father Arrived)

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The Day my Father Arrived

An Excerpt from Chapter 46 Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous Dad was due to arrive at any moment from the airport. I stood beneath the thin shade of a withered avocado tree, watching the dirt road beyond the dying grove. Heat pressed down through the dry California air. Dust clung to my sneakers. The leaves above me barely stirred. It was hard to believe three years had…

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My Baby Can't Breathe

An Excerpt from Chapter 45 Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous A woman’s scream split the silence. A scream tore across the farm.“My baby can’t breathe… I think she’s dying!” Michael and I rounded the corner of the barn. She was running toward us across the hard-packed dirt, clutching an infant tight against her chest. Her dress—a faded blue with small flowers—flapped around…

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(via My Baby Can't Breathe)

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My Baby Can't Breathe

An Excerpt from Chapter 44 Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous A woman’s scream split the silence. A scream tore across the farm.“My baby can’t breathe… I think she’s dying!” Michael and I rounded the corner of the barn. She was running toward us across the hard-packed dirt, clutching an infant tight against her chest. Her dress—a faded blue with small flowers—flapped around…

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His Money for My Life

A sharply dressed heir seeks investment advice from a man kneeling in the dirt, plucking caterpillars into a jar—revealing a deeper divide between wealth and a life lived with purpose.

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His Money for My Life

An Excerpt from Chapter 43 Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous John, whom I met at Joan’s ashram in Connecticut and later at Rio Caliente Health Spa in 1969, visited me in San Marcos. This fellow didn’t have to work because he and his brother Larry had each inherited $250,000. At the Richland House commune, he saw me in frayed garments and sandals, with a beard and shaggy hair,…

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(via Down and Couldn’t Get Up)