by John Gray

Two days ago, February 12^th, a new lunar year began, according to the Chinese calendar. A lunar year consists of 12 lunar months, approximately 354 days in all, and it’s linked to the repeating 12-year Chinese Zodiac cycle. This lunar new year marks the transition from a year of the rat to a year of the ox—the latter a sign that symbolizes strength, respect and fairness. Sounds good to me! The world would certainly benefit from strength, respect and fairness. Happy New Year.

by John Gray

I’m thankful for the technology that allows us to gather from distant places with such ease. It’s good to see you all and feel our presence together.

This is the last of our biweekly teleconference gatherings for this year. As calendar years draw to a close it’s usual to look back and assess the year that was. AJ Willingham, a writer for CNN, posted yesterday, “If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that kindness and compassion have never been more important. It’s taught us that difficult times are made easier when we work together, when we take care of each other; when we reach out a hand to those struggling and lift up the heroes that protect us. It’s taught us that the best way through the darkness is to look for the light—and if there is none, to make it ourselves.”

by John Gray

When we turned the page of our Gregorian calendars to 2020 about ten months ago, I expressed in one of these teleconferences my hope that this would be a year of clear twenty-twenty vision.  I can’t say if things have worked out that way, but I think we could all say at this point that we’ve seen a few things this year! We’ve seen examples of real people acting in selfless altruism, in virtuous character, and we’ve seen the absence of these in dark self-centered depravity and distortion. 

by John Gray

Greetings to everybody.  Wherever we are, it’s here—and it is good to be here!

I’ll begin today with a biblical verse well known to many: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”  [Matthew. 5:8] Ever since these words were spoken by Jesus, remembered, and later translated from Aramaic to Greek to English and eventually memorialized in the Bible, how many millions of earnest people have wondered about what they mean and prayed to know how it’s done? I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear of many people walking around claiming they see God, the figurehead of religious belief.  The usual idea is that whoever, whatever God is, is unknowable until possibly after we’re dead.  To me this simply means there may be very few living people with pure hearts.

by John Gray

Today is the first Sunday of 2020.  May this be a year of clear vision.

Light seeds germinate in the heart and then are recognized by the mind. Aha! An idea, an inspiration is born. Many people like to take credit for their intuitive insights and good ideas, as though creativity originates in the human mind.  However, one of the brighter minds of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, is said to have said, “When the solution is simple God is answering.” That may have been his way of acknowledging that something transcendent is at work in the process of creativity; I don’t know, and Albert isn’t around to ask. We’ll have to ask ourselves. 

by John Gray

There is a great amount of revered poetry in the literature of human cultures and languages the world around. Poetry is defined in my dictionary as “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.” That definition is longer than some poems!  I think of a poem as imagery and meaning expressed through spare, carefully chosen words which touch the heart. I admire the work of anyone, past or present, skilled in this language art. We might think, for examples, of famed poets such as Shakespeare and Rumi, Homer and Milton, Poe, Walt Whitman, Lao Tzu, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, and Pablo Neruda, and their profound, insightful, and lasting inspirational works. To me, however, nothing new or old surpasses the poetry found in the King James Version of the Bible.

by John Gray

We’ve all had many teachers in our lives. There were the professional teachers in our formal school years, and many, many more people who may not have been teachers per se, but from whom we’ve learned many things. And of course, we are taught a great deal through our own observations and experiences in life and from books and other media.