Columns – Page 44 – FindYourBuriedTreasure

Don’t just tolerate – celebrate!

Before last Sunday, I had never been to Lake Elmo. I also had never been to a Lutheran church service. Later in the day, back at home in my own church, I was chatting briefly with one of the deacons about the religious, racial, and cultural differences many of us can find not only in our communities, but among our friends and even within our own extended families. “Our differences shouldn’t just be tolerated,” he said. “They should be celebrated.” His words were music to [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 21st, 2015|Columns, Faith, Music/Singing, Respect, Uganda, Values|2 Comments

Being funny is a serious business

I spent a lot of time laughing last Sunday. And I still have a smile on my face, just thinking about it. A woman in my writers group had just completed a four-week course in stand-up comedy, and invited us to her “graduation” – a comedy club show in which she and others from her class performed stand-up routines. A number of us from the writers group attended the event, and decided to get together for pizza before the show. Since writers love sharing stories, [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 14th, 2015|Achieving Dreams and Goals, Columns, Health and Well-being, Toastmasters|4 Comments

Insight can come from getting lost in our dreams

I was back in college, at the start of a new school year. Coming out of an afternoon class, I suddenly could not remember what dorm I lived in, or how to get there. So I started mentally listing the names of the dorms on campus, hoping that would trigger my memory. There was Lincoln Hall, where I lived during my freshman year. Lincoln and Douglas Halls were two older and identical dorms right next to each other until a newer dorm, Stevenson Hall, was [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 7th, 2015|Columns|Comments Off

Powering down leads to powering up

I just returned from the retreat I mentioned a few weeks ago. If you read that column, you know there was a “silent retreat” portion of the weekend that had me a little apprehensive. Not that I didn’t want to honor the silence, or didn’t think I could. I was just afraid I’d forget and start talking to someone – or myself – or that without realizing it, I’d start humming a song that popped into my head for some reason. I’m happy to report [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 31st, 2015|Columns, Faith, Values|Comments Off

All fired up from an inspiring dream

This is going to sound like something I totally made up, but I swear I’m telling it exactly as it happened – in a dream I had a few nights ago. It was early morning, actually, because my alarm went off and woke me up before it was finished. But that was good, because it kept the dream fresh and vivid enough for me to write it all down before it drifted away. In the dream, I was attending a meeting of a women’s networking [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 24th, 2015|Columns, Respect, Values|Comments Off

Staying silent might be a problem

Have you ever watched a movie or sitcom in which someone has a loud, emotional outburst in a noisy and crowded restaurant, and then suddenly realizes everyone in the entire place has gotten silent and is staring at him? Or one in which someone is alone, having a lively conversation with himself while engrossed in some mundane chore, and then he looks up to find a room full of people watching and listening to him? Or worse, he sees only one person – the one [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 17th, 2015|Columns, Faith, Writing|Comments Off

Celebrate the New Year – in July

Happy New Year! No, I haven’t gotten my national holidays confused. And yes, I realize we just finished celebrating the 4th of July. But in some ways, July always feels to me like the start of a new year. It probably has something to do with two “perpetual calendars” I use every day. One is a flip calendar that includes “A Year of Daily Wisdom.” I keep it on an end table in our family room, and enjoy reading each day’s words of wisdom when [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 10th, 2015|Columns, Holidays|2 Comments

Then and now, there’s no place like home

My kids were 15 and 13 when I first began writing my column in the Villager. At that time, the name and the theme of my column was “No Place Like Home,” and I thought of it pretty much as a “Mom” column. Hearth and home was my headquarters, and family events and activities – my family’s, and those of families in general – were my main topics. At that time, whenever I wrote about my kids – my husband, too, for that matter – [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 3rd, 2015|Columns, Family|Comments Off

Anything can happen if you’re open to the possibilities

“Anything can happen if you let it.” There are a few different ways you could interpret that. One is as a cautionary warning, a reminder to set firm limits and boundaries, and to stay disciplined, focused, and attentive. Because if you’re not, if you loosen up a bit or get a little careless, you never know what awful things might occur. I prefer to take it in the other direction, however – the one in which you wander and explore. Having an idea, certainly, of [...]

By bettyliedtke|June 26th, 2015|Coaching, Columns|Comments Off

Hit the jackpot by looking inside

Imagine that you buy a lottery ticket every week, and that one day you hit the jackpot and win fifty million dollars. But you never cash in, and the windfall doesn’t do you any good. Why? Because you never check the numbers, you just keep on buying tickets. I read a blog post recently that used a slight variation of this as an analogy, and the first thing I did was shake my head, chuckling and rolling my eyes at the thought. Who would do [...]

By bettyliedtke|June 19th, 2015|Buried Treasure, Coaching, Columns, Gifts and Talents, Success|Comments Off

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