• Change is in the air! Make 2012 a year of change for you — with a little help from your friends in the Practice Circle for "Catalysts for Change," a 21-Day program led by Frederic and Maryy Ann Brussat, which started yesterday. It's not too late to join us and work on the little steps that can lead to big changes in your life.

• Follow Fred. Frederic Brussat now has more than 20,000 followers on Twitter and ranks eleventh in the "Spirituality" field. His piece 25 Reasons Why Twitter Is Spiritual continues to circulate on the web and elsewhere. He is working on a new piece about Twitter users. Stay tuned.

• A teacher can make all the difference in the world. The First Grader, now on DVD, charts the uplift an African educator gives to the oldest man ever to attend grade school. More DVDs.

• A preacher of grace and a poet of love. John and Charles Wesley, co-founders of Methodism, turned the religious world upside down with their passion for God and their ideals of "practical divinity." Learn more about their lives and work in a new collection of their writings and hymns. An excerpt with our review covers Charles's hymn "Love Divine All Love's Excelling." More books.

• Silence is making a comeback. In our Spiritual Literacy Blog, we catch up with Pico Iyer and his musings on Black-Hole Resorts, Internet Rescue Camps, and spiritual retreats as ways to find the "joy of quiet" in this age of high-tech information overload.

• Practices for elders. Read about the significant contributions Buddhism and meditation can make in the last stages of our lives. Lewis Richmond's new book Aging as a Spiritual Practice is filled with wisdom and insights.

Native American spiritual teachers. We'll be adding new profiles to the Living Spiritual Teachers Project all this month. This week we invite you to meet Lakota teachers and writers Joseph Marshall III and Ed McGaa (Eagle Man). Index of all the teachers.

• You have got to own your days and name them. January 11 is The Feast Day of Brother Lawrence and January 14 is the Birthday of Albert Schweitzer. In naming these days, we celebrate these spiritual teachers: one who demonstrated the meaning of everyday spirituality and the other who popularized the spiritual practice of reverence.

• Mapping a journey of faith. Higher Ground, one of the Most Spiritually Literate Films of 2012, arrives on DVD this week. Through one woman's story, it encourages us to map our own journey of faith from childhood to adulthood asking questions, entertaining doubts, rejoicing in epiphanies, assessing community, and walking the talk of faith.

• Watch The Band's Visit on DVD. It is a deeply spiritual Israeli comedy about the bridge-making effects of hospitality and the ways music serves as a universal language drawing people together.

• Go deeper with our Values & Visions Guide to Central Station. This absorbing Brazilian drama is about an orphan boy who tenderizes the heart of a cynical woman by helping her realize her kinship with others.

• Watch Cry, the Beloved Country on DVD and Netflix Streaming and use our Values & Visions Guide. Based on Alan Paton's classic 1948 novel set in South Africa, it depicts how forgiveness forges a path to reconciliation.

A Proverb to Ponder
"Everything is good for something."
— Italian Proverb

A Cue to Try
Watching someone give up a seat to an elderly person is a reminder for me to practice kindness today.

A Breath Prayer to Try
Breathing in: As Spirit transforms me . . .
Breathing out: may I transform the world.

A Quotation to Inspire
"Like a lover who spends all his time thinking of his distant love, God has been thinking about me before I was born, for all eternity."
— Ernesto Cardenal in Abide in Love

A Blessing From Us to You
May all beings everywhere
with whom we are inseparably interconnected,
be fulfilled, awakened, liberated, and free.
May there be peace in this world
and throughout the entire universe,
and may we all together complete the spiritual journey.
— Lama Surya Das in Awakening to the Sacred

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