St Thomas

“Traveller, the path is your tracks And nothing more. Traveller, there is no path The path is made by walking. By walking you make a path And turning, you look back At a way you will never tread again Traveller, there is no road Only wakes in the sea.” I have always loved these lines written by the early twentieth-century Spanish poet Antonio Machado. A slightly different version of the third line is one I often share with people these days, “We make the path by walking.” As the pandemic grinds on, losses are piling up for all of us. Staying with the image of a path, we have all experienced a few, or maybe even many paths in our lives that have been changed, blocked, or ended. Weddings, graduations, vacations, reunions have been canceled, are dramatically changed, jobs have been lost, health concerns have increased, and loved ones have…

Take a moment to bring to mind some people who have inspired you, and who have had a significant, positive impact on your life. As you reflect on who came to mind just now, whether they were a parent, friend, sister, brother, family member, teacher, coach, boss, spiritual leader, or political leader, I imagine that there is something they all have in common—each of them was a person of integrity. The word integrity shares the same root as the word integration. A person with integrity has a high degree of integration between what they say and how they live. Such a person “walks the talk” and embodies in their actions what they say with their words. Integrity is based on the highest spiritual values of what it means to live a good life, transcending political, religious, and other differences. People from different perspectives will be open to listening to and…

In 1996, psychologist Roy Bauermeister conducted a fascinating experiment on will power. He invited a large group of people into a room filled with the smell of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. He sat them at tables and then brought to each table two bowls. One bowl contained radishes and the other chocolate chip cookies. Half of the people were told they could eat only the radishes and to use their will power to avoid eating any of the cookies. The other half of the group were told they could skip the radishes and eat as many cookies as they wished. Ten minutes later, everyone was led to another room where they were given (unknown to them at the time) an unsolvable geometry problem. The group of people who had just eaten the cookies worked an average of nineteen minutes trying to solve the problem before giving up. The group of…