DeKALB Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of DeKalb will host Gary Kowalski, author of Science and the Search for God, at 7 p.m. Friday, March 7. A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Divinity School, Kowalski is the author of seven books on spirituality, nature, history and science, including The Souls of Animals, The Bible According To Noah, and Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of Americas Founding Fathers.His work has been published in seven languages, voted a Readers Favorite by the Quality Paperback Book Club, and appeared in periodicals like Tikkun and Yoga Journal.

An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Kowalski is the interim pastor at the Community Church of Chapel Hill in North Carolina.

How do people of faith grapple with findings of science, and how do we explore differing ideas about the divine? UUFD pastor Rev. Linda Slabon asked.Many of us in the faith community ask questions about the cosmos, evolutionary consciousness, and our relationship to our earth and her creatures.

Kowalskis talk is free and open to the public. The doors at the church, 158 N. Fourth St. in DeKalb, will open at 6:15 p.m. for a reception and book signing. The topic of Kowalskis talk will be Celebrating Our Kinship With All Creation.In this talk, Kowalski will share the journey that led him to appreciate nature as a sacrament and to rediscover the ancient knowledge that other species are not so different from ourselves. He suggests that a new respect for the creatures who share the Earth with humans is essential to healing the planets environmental crisis and is key to our own inner peace.

Kowalski will preach the sermon At Home in the Cosmos at the 10 a.m. service at the UUFD on Sunday, March 9. Last fall, Voyager One became the first human artifact to leave our solar system and travel into interstellar space. As modern science explores the question are we alone?, Kowalski suggests the groundwork is being laid for a new spirituality.

We invite members of the the community to bring books for signing and come with your questions, your curiosity, and with your fervent heart, Slabon said.

Read more here:
Science, God and being human in the universe

His animal-and-earth friendly philosophy has made cartoonist Patrick McDonnell a favorite with comic strip readers. Beginning next week, his popular Mutts comic will appear daily.

The strip explores the special bond between animals and their guardians, and the endearing friendship of Earl, the dog, and Mooch, the cat.

Its just cute the way the dog and cat interact, says Jan Davidson of Tipp City, who voted for Mutts in our recent readers poll, and says she finds the strip very funny.

Animals contribute to our happiness and our well-being, McDonnell says. In my strip, I try to capture those small moments of happiness that celebrate the human/animal bond. All animals are intelligent and have awareness and feelings. They are fellow beings and deserve to share this beautiful planet with us in peace. I try to see the world through their eyes, and give them a voice, while still keeping Mutts fun and entertaining.

He seems to be succeeding : Mutts is now is tickling readers fancies in more than 700 newspapers and is read in 20 countries. McDonnell has won the National Cartoonists Societys highest honor, The Reuben, for Cartoonist of the Year and five Harvey Awards for Best Comic Strip.

On an international level, it has won Germanys Max and Moritz Award for Best International Comic Strip and the Swedish Academy of Comic Arts Adamson Statuette.

Mutts has also won awards for its environmental and animal advocacy: two Genesis Awards from The Ark Trust, The HSUS Hollywood Genesis Award for Ongoing Commitment, the PETA Humanitarian Award, and a Sierra Club award.

A book author as well

McDonnell has published a number of books: In Shelter Stories: Love, McDonnells animal shelterthemed strips are accompanied by real-life pet adoption stories submitted by readers worldwide. In 2009, he collaborated with The Power of Now author Eckhart Tolle to create Guardians of Being.

The Mutts cartoons have been published in 22 compilation books in the United States and in numerous collections throughout the world. In 2003, fine art publisher Harry N. Abrams published MUTTS: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell, a monograph on McDonnells career.

Go here to see the original:
Mutts to appear daily

Stephen Lovekin

Hes a hip-hop mogul, New York Times best-selling author, and proud dad of two, and thats not even the half of it. As fast as you can list Russell Simmons seemingly endless achievements, he adds to them. His capacity for success and his passion for philanthropic and social initiatives seems both limitless and effortless. How does he do it? His new book, out tomorrow, called Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple, goes some way to explain it. A practical guide to the benefits of meditation, it makes a compelling, thoroughly researched case, and offers readers straightforward guidance on how to get started. Here, Simmons discusses what he considers to be the greatest tool to promote happiness.

Your book includes the quote: To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Some think of meditation as being hippy-dippy but that projects great power.

Its still a little bit of a lofty quote! But you know, the fact is those who understand what were seeking, those who know, they just need an example...like when I tell a basketball player about when hes in the zone -- when the rim feels like its as big as the ocean, you cant miss it. When you read a word and youre not even breathing, because you are in total concentration. This shock or this beauty that promotes this shock, or this music that promotes this stillness, is a catalyst.

What youre looking for is lasting stillness, stable, lasting stillness, or bliss. Whenever the noise is gone, then everything is beautiful.

And we dont know how to get into it, whether its running up and down the basketball court until finally you get a second wind and the world just opens up because you become present. You cannot induce it through the other vehicles always. Music is helpful to people who love music, and beauty for those people who want to go look at sights and say, Oh my God, look at that sunset. These things are all helpful, but they kind of shock you into presence. What youre looking for is lasting stillness, stable, lasting stillness, or bliss. Whenever the noise is gone, then everything is beautiful. You can actually see Gods miracles unfolding.

What would you say to young men who think meditating might make them look weird or weak?

I know how to talk to them. I can explain it depending on who I am talking to. I kind of made it as simple as I could, so much so that my 11 year-old daughter said that the book was written like See Spot Run. I said, This is as highbrow as Daddy can get! I said, Is there anything in there you didnt already know about meditation? She said, Yes. Some of the research. I said, Well, good, there you go, you learned something, shut up! My 11 year-old daughter thought my book was written for a child! Shes pretty smart, they both go to a school for the gifted, so theyre both geniuses and they get it from their Mama. Daddy is a little bit simpler.

I think that my job is taking complex scripture and complex ideas and simplifying them as much as I can without losing their essence.

Theres a reason that some things are written in terms that are more sophisticated, and scriptures are more difficult to grasp. Not only because people like to use big words, but because they want to really pinpoint the experiences. I think that my job is taking complex scripture and complex ideas and simplifying them as much as I can without losing their essence, and its a fun one. Writing my Twitter keeps me in prayer. And doing that with scripture and with spiritual principles is something that makes me very happy, so thats why I write these books.

More here:
Men We Love: Russell Simmons

This year, the nine-day School has more participants than ever before. With the event fast approaching, registration levels continue at an all-timehigh.

The School for The Work is an expansive journey toward freedom. Each day during the School, many participants find that they are feeling happier than the day before. Mental habits and constrictions can easily fall away in the light of understanding, and as the mind clears, the whole worldbrightens.

The exercises and activities in the School for The Work are designed to mirror the transformation Byron Katie went through after her experience of waking up to reality in 1986. She is present with participants from morning to night, directing every exercise, answering questions, and commenting on feedback. Issuescovered

include sexuality, relationships, children and parents, anxiety, body image, God, death and dying, addiction, health, money, andwork.

What fascinated me during the School is how Katie organized the program so holisticallyactivities followed one another in a way that created a massive learning curve. I am aware that what she does in The Work is beyond educational paradigms, and I am not saying this from a position of an evaluator, but as a professional interested in how people learn. I was amazed at the way she fit the contentthe hard-to-explain, what is beyond what we are used tointo a perfect methodology. Z. fromSerbia

The School works for every participant who comes to it with an open mind. The results are more radical, more generous, than you can possibly imagine. ByronKatie

The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa is one of the worlds most highly-rated resorts, with spectacular views and 220 acres of lushgrounds.

Schedule

SundayTuesday, 918 March2014

Location

Continued here:
Record Numbers for the School for The Work with Byron Katie at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa