Author: tomstellawebsite

     “Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairy tale. Present means we understand that the here and now is sacred, sacramental, threaded … Continue reading Present Over Perfect

     “Compassion, like charity, begins at home. The first step toward deep healing is self-healing. Only after we have remembered to respect and care for ourselves can we truly enter into “kinship with all beings.” If we try to help others before we have healed our wounds and developed compassion for ourselves, we may find … Continue reading Self Care First

“In bullfighting there is a place in the ring where the bull feels safe. If he can reach this place, he stops running and can gather his full strength. He is no longer afraid… It is the job of the matador to know where this sanctuary lies, to be sure the bull does not have … Continue reading Querencia

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing… is that pretty much anything else you worship … Continue reading Everybody Worships

“…ecology merges with spirituality, because the experience of being connected with all of nature, of belonging to the universe, is the very essence of spirituality. The original meaning of spirit in many ancient philosophical and religious traditions, in the West as well as in the East, is that of the breath of life. The Latin … Continue reading Between Birth and Death

“I came here with a huge open heart, like a big, sweet dog, and I still have one. But some days the only thing that can cheer me up is something bad happening to someone I hate, preferably if it went viral and the photo of the person showed hair loss and perhaps the lifelong … Continue reading Loving Our Imperfect Selves

     “I have been a God-guy virtually all my life. You might say that was inevitable, being raised in the context of conservative white American Christianity as I was. I was singing Bible songs and memorizing Bible verses before I could read. My skinny boyhood butt sat in a well-padded church pew two or three … Continue reading First hand religion

     “By and large, our world has lost its sense of wonder. We have grown up. We no longer catch our breath at the sight of a rainbow or the scent of a rose, as we once did. We have grown bigger and everything else smaller, less impressive. We get blasé and worldly-wise and sophisticated. … Continue reading Wonder-full

“In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.”      It may be because I’m … Continue reading A Higher Law

     When I was in medical school, I worked for two months at Yale New Haven Hospital, where I helped take care of an elderly man with chronic pancreatitis. I made the mistake of assigning him a regular diet, not the very-low-fat diet his condition required. When he was served pork chops, he ate them … Continue reading Mistakes and Forgiveness