Your Personal Renaissance

Life's true calling
by Diane Dreher Ph.D.

Do Today's Women Have Too Many Choices?

Journalism professor Barbara Kelley noticed a surprising trend among her women students: they were bright, successful, highly motivated—and terribly confused. Read More

Why Do We Have a Crisis in Leadership?

This week, NPR reporters introducing California Governor Jerry Brown's 2012 "State of the State" message were at a loss for words.  "The Governor wrote his own speech," they said. There was no advance notice, no executive summary. Like the rest of us, they had to wait to hear what he had to say. Read More

Why Are Children Experiencing a Crisis of Imagination?

Educator and author Gloria DeGaetano shares a revealing insight from a second grade teacher at one of her workshops. The teacher said that on the first day of class, when she began reading the children a story, one boy, Tommy, started fidgeting anxiously. Looking up, he asked what he should be doing. "Just listen to the story," she answered. He looked at her blankly. Read More

Begin the New Year with Positive Momentum

This week when my husband Bob and entered the gym for our regular workout, Dom at the front desk said, "You two are consistent. But you'll see lots of people come here for the first two weeks in January and then never see them again." Read More

From Reactive to Creative

Long before research revealed the harmful effects of chronic stress, Henry David Thoreau knew that living at a frantic pace injures us at a deep level. He called this life "quiet desperation." It is far more desperate for busy men and women today. Read More

Are You Curious?

This week NASA launched Curiosity, the new Mars rover, to explore the mysteries of the red planet. For millennia, we've gazed in wonder at the stars above our heads. Curiosity is intrinsic to our nature. As children, we naturally reach out to explore our world. Creative individuals--artists and scientists--never lose this intrinsic curiosity.  Read More

How to Raise Healthy Children in our Fast-Paced Media Age

Nearly 400 years ago, English poet Thomas Traherne described how in childhood his perception of himself and the world was distorted  by "the customs and manners of men," which "put grubs and worms in [our] heads that are enemies to all pure and true apprehensions, and eat out all [our] happiness" (Traherne, 1908, III, 7, 13). Read More

Living Creatively in a World of Lack

The daily news mesmerizes us with messages of lack. There's not enough—not enough energy reserves to meet our future needs, not enough food to feed the hungry, not enough jobs in the US economy or enough money in the federal budget for education, health care, environmental protection, Social Security, and Medicare, not to mention science and the arts. Read More

Who Was Shakespeare?

The new film, Anonymous, has publicized the persistent controversy about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Read More

What Are Your Gifts?

I've always been fascinated by the Renaissance, one of the most creative periods in human history. A sense of new possibilities filled the air as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, St. Teresa of Avila, William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, John Milton, and countless others were inspired by a sense of vocation. Read More

Where Do Creative Ideas Come From?

I began asking this question in college while reading the English poets. Traherne, Blake and Wordsworth found their inspiration looking back on childhood. Donne was inspired by love, Milton by a passionate commitment to his ideals.

But where did their creative ideas come from? As Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream: Read More

Diane Dreher, Ph.D.

Diane Dreher, Ph.D., is a professor of English at Santa Clara University. She is also a research associate at the SCU Spirituality and Health Institute.

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