WINN – What is Needed Now

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

By Brian Luke Seaward The next time you glance at the digital watch on your wrist, the one connected to an App that can monitor your heart rate, respiration, or blood pressure, give a nod of thanks to Elmer Green. Known as a pioneer in the study of biofeedback, Green popularized its use for the…

To Introduce Elmer Green

By Bill Hale, Jeff Nichols, and Celia Coates My attention was caught years ago by a friend’s explanation of the purpose for introducing speakers before they address an audience. He said an introduction was more than an opening ritual of praise, it was about offering information that allows us to decide whether the speaker is…

WINN Continues …..

In the Summer of 2016 WINN began publishing weekly posts, and then posts twice a month, until there were more than 200 short articles written by a number of authors as well as by myself. This Summer it became clear that it was hard to navigate the WINN site and that it would also be…

From Celia

As the photo that heads this message shows, Winn is taking a holiday. The next new post will appear on September 10th. Meanwhile, there are more than 200 old posts that can be found on the website – https://www.winnpost.org. (Lyndon Maher photo from Getty Images)

Awe and The Awful

By Celia Coates I’ve been having a difficult time writing this week’s post. It’s about a large topic – mysticism – that’s hard to say much about in just a few words. Mysticism also ties in to the core idea in WINN (What Is Needed Now). Our society has a limited and destructive system of…

When Everything Is Spiritual

By Celia Coates Rob Bell’s book, EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL, has the subtitle: “Who We Are and What We’re Doing Here.” That subtitle made it the kind of book I’m really interested in reading. It turned out to be a wise and iconoclastic page-turner, an unusual book for a Christian pastor to have written. His ideas…

Breaking the Rules

By Celia Coates How can we know what is true and real these days? What is being hidden or masked or maneuvered? When did cheating to get what you want become so common? As I was puzzling over these questions, I remembered a post from 2018 that had surprised me. It had shown me something…

To See and To Care

By Celia Coates 100-year-old Hugh Van Ellis was in the news this past week. He’s the Tulsa Massacre survivor who said, “We are all one. We are all one.” Those are shining words from someone who was alive when white townspeople killed hundreds of African Americans and destroyed their homes and businesses. Peaceful unity certainly…

Lessons from Whales

by Celia Coates I don’t usually read books about animals, but recently I’ve been fascinated by BECOMING WILD by Carl Safina. He writes about two mammals and one bird with several separate chapters each for sperm whales, chimpanzees, and scarlet macaws. The whole book is delightful, but this post will look only at what he…

What To Get Done in ’21

By Paul Jackson After the pandemic shutdown, I took a walk most days near Sligo Creek Park in Silver Spring, Maryland. In front of a bridge crossing the creek, I could see a quote on the pavement from the @chalkladies, “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” The line is from Mary Oliver’s…

Reflections on Forgiveness

By Brian Luke Seaward When the phone rings after midnight, the call is rarely about good news. That was when Rose, a good friend of mine, learned that her teenage son, Benjamin, had been killed after his car was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Rose was overwhelmed by shock, pain, and grief, and then…

Reading WINN

By Celia Coates A few people in my family were concerned that I was addled in my thinking and had a foolish view of reality so, one reason I created WINN in 2016 was to set my views before them in a non-argumentative way. I’m not alone in my take on life. And, I believe…