| James Vandenburg |
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 My grandfather was fond of quoting the old saying, in the direction of anyone who happened to be annoying him at the moment, “If he had two thoughts to rub together, he'd be dangerous.” I don't think I'm all that dangerous, but I have had two persistent thoughts lately; and I have been rubbing them together
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 I swear I wasn't making fun of anyone's haircut. I was just leading a group of singers in an extremely effective, though admittedly silly-looking, vocal exercise and giving a little explanation along the way. But if you happened to walk in at that precise moment, you might have been tempted to call the local mental hospital for a mass pick-up.  I heard a quote recently that's been messing with my head in some pretty amazing ways. It's a line from Karyl Huntley that reads, “You know you have forgiven someone when he or she has harmless passage through your mind.” Naturally, on hearing this, my mind began sorting and sifting through dozens of old photo albums. You know how it goes.  I believe it was a Tuesday. There wasn't anything unusual about this particular Tuesday; no holiday, graduation or birthday. It wasn't a coming together of old friends, long-separated by a painful amount of time, distance or emotional grievances. It was just – Tuesday.  Yesterday was Groundhog's Day and we learned from that insightful little rodent, Punxsutawney Phil, that we will have to suffer six more weeks of winter. Living in San Diego, the threat of an extended winter doesn't quite hold the same meaning as it does for people living in the northeast. So far this winter, I've only had to endure temperatures that range from the mid 60s to the mid 80s. In fact, my biggest weather-related dilemmas have mostly centered around the question of flip-flops or shoes. This is a talk I gave at the Metropolitan Community Church of San Diego in honor of the Super Bowl. If you've read Making Life Better, you may recognize some of the concepts. I don't have a video, but to paint a mental image, just before getting up to speak, I lost the robe/vestments to reveal a San Diego Chargers jersey and a lovely set of pearls. Special thanks ~ To Jenn Wright for the jersey, to Jeff Auman for the pearls and to Laura Harper (and a few of her San Ysidro High School students) for the very authentic penalty flags. “Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.” I caught this line from Richard Bach's Illusions loitering just outside my thoughts this morning. It didn't seem to be particularly menacing or like it was trying to cause any trouble, so I didn't give too much attention. It was probably just hanging out in the deserted food court waiting for Starbucks to open after the early showing of some forgotten dream sequence. Author Interview's J.K. Robinson Talks with James Vandenburg, Author of Making Life Better Why did you write this book? I wanted to prompt discussion and offer some practical ways to process and engage what I have long-felt has been one of the “missing links” in the personal development discussion. So many of our self-improvement efforts seem to neglect the effects and influence of our perspective, our levels of self-awareness and the multitude of assumptions we have deeply embedded and installed within our perceptions – our basic |
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