The Identity Beacon Blog

Thank you, David Reed

A friend of mine recently sent me this LinkedIn post by someone named David Reed. Actually, it’s not a post; it’s a meditation on mortality. But more. It is a meditation on life. The power and grace of his words startled me. I wondered whether...

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Shhhhh.

“There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.”  These words from George Steiner, a leading, French-born American literary critic, struck me as perfectly fitting for how we live today. Or don’t. We live in chaotic times that ceaselessly demand our attention in...

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Will my life be rich?

There is a hopelessness in the air these days. We have, many believe, reached the point of no return when it comes to getting along with people who don’t see things our way. We speak the same language yet understand nothing. To quote a famous...

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Who am I?

In the 1999 movie, Analyze This, Billy Chrystal plays a psychiatrist who's treating a mafia boss.There’s a scene with a meeting of mob bosses, where Billy Chrystal unexpectedly shows up and sits in for his patient. Surprised, one of the other bosses asks him, Who...

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Who can I trust?

On December 13, 2020, George Schultz turned 100. In an article in The Washington Post around the same time, Schultz, a former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury and state, described the 10 most important things he learned about trust over the course of his life. Here...

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Why the middle matters

One has to go beyond the pairs of opposites to find the real source of anything.” Joseph Campbell    We’re living in a polar world, a world which, in many ways, is defined by polar opposites. Our notion of opposites tends to default to politics: Republicans...

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What does joy mean to you?

  In my last Viewsletter, I referred to the Book of Joy, published in 2016, which condenses a week’s worth of discussions between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama into a compendium of wisdom. In today’s complicated world, I believe it’s worth looking at joy,...

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A time for JOY

The two men reflect on their personal experiences and outline what they call the eight pillars of joy. In re-reading the book, I was struck by how relevant these pillars are today as we navigate a new way of being in the world....

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What do you believe? (v.7)

It’s been two years since my end-of-year viewsletter focused on what you believe. Too long! Over time, readers have submitted dozens of answers, ranging from the illuminating, serious, and funny, to the distressing and the reassuring. Let’s do it again. After all, we are in...

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Are you stayin’ alive?

The other day, a classic rock station happened to play the Bee Gee’s famous 1977 song, Stayin’ Alive. The lyrics tell the story of someone who is struggling with life, but won’t give up. He has ups and downs, but has hope and won’t abandon...

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Why can’t we all just get along?

Diversity and pluralism have informed America’s identity for generations. In these two principles, we celebrate the fullness of our humanity: the similarities as well as the differences that make us the individuals we are. Yet today we are short-changing that humanity by confusing social labels...

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