A few months ago, a dear friend took me as her guest to hear Dr. Brené Brown speak at a local PBS lecture here in Houston. Brené is a research professor at the U of H Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Her current research focuses on authentic leadership and wholeheartedness in families, schools, and organizations.
This is from her blog, Ordinary Courage:
I just came across the lyrics to this song in an old journal and I thought about posting them here, but wouldn’t the actual song be better? I used to sing this (loudly) in my car. Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am7EI5tdaX4&w=640&h=390]
Written by Randy Newman. Sung here by Chantal Kreviazuk.
(If you’re wondering how you may know this one, she recorded it for the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack in 1999 as well as “How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.”)
I entered these three photos in the “Best Friends: The Ultimate Animal Photo Contest.” Besides the winners that the judges select, there is a People’s Choice award. “Starting weekly on March 7th, the photographer who acquires the most People’s Choice votes will win a special prize. The winner will also be published in our online gallery, where a total of 14 winners will be featured.”
You can vote for my horse here. (You can only vote for one picture, so let’s do the horse.) Someone has 89 votes already, so get going!
“Starting weekly on March 7th, the photographer who acquires the most People’s Choice votes will win a special prize. The winner will also be published in our online gallery, where a total of 14 winners will be featured.
In order to vote you need to provide a valid email address, and only one vote per email address is possible for each weekly voting cycle beginning March 7th. If after voting the first time, you decide to vote for another image, the first image you voted for will lose that vote.
The “People’s Choice” is a section apart from the rest of the contest and the votes will not influence the judges. A photographer would seek votes in order to win the “People’s Choice” section alone. The winners for the other categories will be determined by the judges.”
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman
A few days ago, I added a new page to my blog called “Favorite Reading.” I brainstormed and came up with what has meant the most to me over the years and why (in no particular order). I’m sure I’ll be adding more and I want to add images of the book covers also. You can see I haven’t finished with my comments, but it’ll be a good record of what I enjoy reading and like to return to often.
The list thus far:
Man’s Search for Meaning – Victor Frankl: He writes about the psychological effects of being in Auschwitz and on our natural desire to find meaning in life. This book reminds me that we have the power to shape our responses to what happens to us in life.
The Highly Sensitive Person – Elaine N. Aron, PhD: This was the first book that helped me recognize that I am not as unique as I feared. I am an HSP, a highly sensitive person; someone more reactive to stimuli than others. Along with 15-20% of all people, I can concentrate deeply, sense subtleties, and delve deeply. Sigh of relief.
Letters To a Young Poet – Rainer Maria Rilke: “Do not search now for the answers which cannot be given you because you could not live them. It is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, one distant day live right into the answer.” I almost felt he was talking directly to me when he said a writer is someone who can’t help but write.
Being Perfect – Anna Quindlen: As a perfectionist, I find this book to be useful in reminding me to explore new things and try to learn more about myself, even if I’m not the best. Do what makes YOU happy, not anybody else. I’m such the quintessential people pleaser.
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity – Julia Cameron: Just for the idea of morning pages alone this book is awesome. Great for getting in touch with your creative self.
When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chodron: Face fear, anger, and loss of control by letting go. Our continuing efforts to establish security for ourselves prevents our deep experience of the joy of living. Her book is about unpretentious openheartedness.
Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman: We share a birthday so I already feel a kinship to Walt, but I also love his openhearted love of nature.
The Feminine Face of God – Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins: This helped me define what is sacred in my life. The idea of feminine aspects of faith really speaks to me.
Journal of a Solitude – May Sarton: Kind of a meditation on striving to get to a calm mind. I identified with her depression and her writing.
Possession – A.S. Byatt: literary romance, mystery, poetry… what could be better?
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy: I don’t know why I love such a tragic novel. I just do.
The Razor’s Edge – W. Somerset Maugham
All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs – Elie Wiesel
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide – Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn: More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century, they write, detailing the rampant gendercide in the developing world, particularly in India and Pakistan. This is where we got the idea to raise money for a school in Cambodia.
Writings From the New Yorker 1927 – 1976 – E.B. White: Just so quaint and humorous.
The Power of One – Bryce Cortenay: Definitely in my top 5.
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton: I didn’t know anything about apartheid before reading this book in high school English.
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe: I love Achebe. It was written just two years before Nigeria gained political independence and describes African life from within. Very compassionate and elegant.
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser and Maggie, A Girl of the Streets – Stephen Crane: I LOVE rags to riches stories.
The Age of Innocence (or anything else) by Edith Wharton: So romantic and yet so disappointing.
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White: Respect for all living things; cycle of life and death. Plus it reminds me of my mother reading it to us at bedtime when we were young.
The King’s English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller – Betsy Burton: Behind the scenes of a bookstore in SLCity. So fun!
“The Waste Land” – T.S. Eliot: modern and medieval in one; spare in hope. I think I like it for some of it’s key lines.
Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov – Stacy Schiff: Mrs. Nabokov was a crucial presence by her husband’s side, editing and translating. Such a great love story.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity – David Allen: My Bible.
Bird by Bird: Anne Lamott
Time Was Soft There – Jeremy Mercer
The Audacity to Win – David Plouffe
Anything by Elizabeth Berg, Jane Green, Jodi Picoult, Susan Vreeland, or Anita Shreve.
The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall – Ian Bremmer:
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier – Thad Carhart:
Lydia Cassat Reading the Morning Paper – Harriet Scott Chessman
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Lucy – Ellen Feldman
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman
The Wal-mart Effect – Charles Fishman:
84, Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff:
Call Me By My True Names – Thich Nhat Hanh
Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism – Cornell West:
Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling – Ross King
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales – Oliver Sacks
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery: This was my grandmother’s favorite book and I have her copy.
Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman – Alice Steinbach
Down Came the Rain – Brooke Shields
Pillars of Hercules – Paul Thereaux
I saw this mesmerizing video today on The Huffington Post and it reminds me that we are capable of great beauty.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9jghLeYufQ&w=640&h=390]
“The video, captured in an impromptu shoot by director Spike Jonze, shows the performers carefully watching each other’s timing, and after it’s all over they seem to get along well for such different artists.”
