For me, the Lord's Prayer is a wonderful meditation, and the more ways I can experience it the more personal it becomes. Maybe it seems inappropriate to take it onto the sidewalks, so to speak, complete with panting from exertion and the noise of traffic, but to me it felt like a small awakening.

The title of the book Unbornness refers to the state of the soul’s being before birth, as it prepares to be born in its little human form. The book by Peter Selg refutes the image of the giant gumball machine where you turn the handle and a new soul pops out. Instead, he says, it is a very intentional (and often difficult) process that is anything but random.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with programs that propose to promote understanding between identity groups by “breaking barriers,” “building coalitions,” or “finding common ground.” I like the goal, and I’ve gotten to know some great people through these activities, but I’ve always felt more restless than truly changed by them. That said, I like this simple statement about the need to connect with those we see as different from us.

Can we consider the three major religions of the Middle East—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—each as an expression of a necessary step in “reconnecting” with the spirit? And can we judge the rightness of these steps without the wisdom of the feminine principle? In this section from How Wide the Heart, Marko Pogacnik poses these questions while traveling in the Holy Lands and seeking solutions to the ancient conflicts there.

Religious teachings give us knowledge and guidance, but also the freedom to stray from or misinterpret their laws. Through our feminine nature, the part of our wisdom we cannot separate from because we live within it, we can find a necessary balance.

Just like body parts, some works of literature require “enhancing” to reach their full potential. In this case, I was pleased to render service to the opening chapter of an audio book I picked up at the library called The Nature of Monsters. See if you don’t agree that a few subtle effects help reveal the point and thrust of the writing.