Healthy, Happy — and Why “Happiness” Feels So Hard When I ask people, “What would make next year a success?”  the most common answer I hear is simple: “I want to be healthy and happy.” Health, I’ve written about before—metabolic flexibility, rest and effort, the dance between individual well-being and community responsibility. Happiness, however, is harder. Not because it’s mysterious, but because we often confuse a fleeting emotion with a state of being. When most people say

Faith, Myth, and the Search for Meaning The biggest question behind faith often returns to the “original mover” — who created all of this, and what’s the point? When we talk about spirituality, we often use the word myth . In this context, myth  doesn’t mean falsehood; rather, it refers to the story we tell ourselves to make sense of existence. It’s our framework for understanding who we are, where we came from, and what it all means. As such we all have a myth based on our i

What Is Church? People hold a wide range of perspectives on what “church” means—just as they do about most things in life. The word church  originates from the Greek ekklesia , meaning assembly  or gathering of people.  It never referred to a building. Instead, it described a group of individuals coming together, each with unique gifts, united in purpose. In that sense, the church is less an institution and more a family. At its best, church is a place for community, personal

Purpose and Meaning: The Lifelong Experiment A Privileged Question Purpose and meaning are theoretical topics most people only ponder when they have the time—or privilege—to think. Many spend their days running from one task to another without ever pausing to consider either question. Yet to even ask  what your purpose is—or what gives your life meaning—is a privilege in itself. Defining the Two Purpose is your mission—the reason something exists or is done. Meaning is the si

Spirit, Faith, and the Search for Meaning Western thought has long been shaped by materialism — the belief that everything that exists is physical in nature and can be explained by physical processes. Within the familiar framework of body, mind, and spirit, the body represents the physical, the mind (the psychological), and we’re left wondering: what exactly is the spirit? Is it everything else  — or is it everything ? Is it something — or nothing at all? Recently I’ve been s