Natalie Audelo

Hard work isn’t always the work that takes the most time, or the work that gets paid the most. The hardest work is the work that challenges, makes us uncomfortable, or requires change. If we actually value hard work — we have to do some of our own.

We are so burned out by our data-heavy, screen-based, supposedly friction-free lives that we no longer have the time or energy to engage in the kind of small, unfabulous, mundane, place-based friendships or acquaintance-ships that have nourished and sustained humans for literal centuries.

In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do—spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery. A mystery draws us in, leads us on, lures us. (A duty may numb us out, turn us off, tune us... See more

No doubt, science gives us the capacity for wonder. It expands our sense of what is possible and helps us marvel at the enormity and preciousness of the universe. But does it give us the vocabulary we need for our spiritual life?

My sense is that it is either too precise or too abstract to give me the right words and images to name what God might... See more

“Schmooze” derives from the Yiddish “shmuesn”, which in turn derives from Hebrew “shemuah,” meaning “rumor.”