1. Legacy of the Heart :The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood 2. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy lives by Wayne Muller

It requires a tremendous leap of faith to imagine that our deepest sorrows, our losses and our grief, may become gifts for us.

In this bestselling book, featured on Oprah, Wayne Muller explores how the pain and hurt of our lives can become catalysts that bring forth remarkable strength and wisdom, courage and peace. We do not need to repair what we believe is damaged, so much as to awaken what is already alive and well, a deep, spiritual magic that burns bright and refuses to be extinguished.

Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives

In the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. When action is universally prescribed as more useful than rest, we inevitably lose our way. We bypass the nourishment that would give us succour, and we reject the quiet that would give us wisdom. Poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing striving and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

All spiritual traditions insist that a life well-lived requires rest. Only from rest may we gain the nourishment, wisdom, courage and clarity necessary to heal the world. In this book, Wayne Muller explores how we may reclaim the wisdom and delight that make our lives and work fruitful.

Wayne Muller on the Sabbath.

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How Then, Shall We Live?: Four Simple Questions That Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives by Wayne Muller

We all long to experience a sense of inner wholeness and guidance, but today’s notions of healing and recovery too often keep us focused on our brokenness, on our deficiencies rather than our strengths. Wayne Muller’s luminous new book gently guides us to the place where we are already perfect, already blessed with the wisdom we need to live a life of meaning, purpose and grace.

He starts, as do so many spiritual teachers, with simple questions:

> Who am I?

> What do I love?

> How shall I live, knowing I will die?

> What is my gift to the family of the earth?

He then takes us deeper, exploring each question through transformative true stories. We meet men and women–Wayne’s neighbors, friends, patients–who have discovered love, courage, and kindness even in the midst of sorrow and loss. And through them we glimpse that relentless spark of spiritual magic that burns within each of us.

Woven throughout are contemplations, daily practices, poems, and teachings from the great wisdom teachings. Page by page, we become more awake to the joy and mystery of this precious human life, and to the unique gifts every one of us has to offer the world

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Psalm 23

The Pearl of Psalm 23

Psalm23 – The Lord Is My Shepherd

A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [a] I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough by Wayne Muller [Updated July 11, 2012]

From the moment we are born, we are seekers. Our culture obsessively promotes the pursuit of money, success and self-improvement. At the end of each activity-jammed day, though, we collapse into bed discouraged by everything we have not checked off on our to-do lists, in despair that whatever we have accomplished is never enough. Worse still, when our dreams become derailed by the inherent tragedies of life—job loss, financial peril, sickness, or the death of a loved one—we feel devastated by the pain and injustice of it all.

Nationally renowned author, therapist, and minister Wayne Muller offers healing for the perpetually stressed in A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough. By learning compassion and mercy for ourselves and by recognizing what is most profoundly true about who we are and what we need, we can gain the self-acceptance so that whatever we choose to do, in this moment, it is wholly enough.

Muller mixes the writings of great spiritual and political leaders with inspirational anecdotes from his own life, inviting us to derive more satisfaction from less and pull gratitude out of the ashes of grief. The answer to what he describes as “authentic happiness” lies not in seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty. In reality, he writes, the glass is always half full and half empty. The world is neither broken nor whole, but eternally engaged in rhythms between joy and sorrow. With Muller’s guidance, we may find ourselves on the most courageous spiritual pilgrimage of our lives.

Wayne Muller is an ordained minister and therapist and founder of Bread for the Journey, an innovative organization serving families in need. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he is Senior Scholar at the Fetzer Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He also runs the Institute for Engaged Spirituality and gives lectures and retreats nationwide. He is the author of Legacy of the Heart, a New York Times bestseller, and How, Then, Shall We Live? He lives with his family in northern California.
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Wayne Muller explores when enough is enough.

Wayne Muller on Enough is Enough

In this segment from the IONS 2007 conference, Wayne Muller urges us to recognize the light we have to offer the world. First we have to believe that who we are, is enough. Then in sharing our gifts and our light with others, we need to understand when we have given enough. If we do not see ourselves as being enough or we do not feel we have given enough, we will become weary.