For the past eight years, I have had the privilege of speaking to second-year students at local high schools. My topic? What I learned from 4,000 hours, over 20 years, answering more than 11,000 phone calls on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. I take seriously the fact that I have been given 45 minutes out […]
Loving the Person Who Most Needs Our Love Read More »
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” Voltaire Sometimes perfect finds us when we least expect it. Late last year, I was asked to keynote at a meeting of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) for school districts across the state of Illinois. I could never have conceived how this invitation would help save a life and change
It is so very difficult. When I witness anger and hatred boiling out of a mass of humanity, as that which flooded my life on January 6, part of me wants to turn away and remain in denial. Another part sets out, with the rest of me as an unwitting accomplice, to hate those who
Where There Is Hatred… Read More »
In 1968, as a junior at Muskegon Catholic Central High School, the priest I had for religion class changed my life. I discovered yesterday he is ill, so I drafted the following to send to him today. Dear Father LaGoe, Philosopher and educator, Neil Postman once wrote “Children are the living messages we send to
“I would steal the stress and abuse from your life in an instant if I could, but I cannot. However, has the chaos you are facing taught you something about the human journey that you can use to help others?” I have asked some version of this question to hundreds of people over the past
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The woman on the other end of the call tried desperately to speak through anxiety and a torrent of tears. “Take a deep breath.” I said, “I want to understand what you are facing.” “I’m overwhelmed. I’m confused. My life is falling apart. I tried to call my therapist, but her mailbox is full, so
I am fascinated how often people battered by life, acknowledge that, despite the harshness of the journey, it bore gifts they hope never to relinquish. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years ago, but it’s severity, and need to deal with it, only became clear in early 2019. In the months since the
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At first, it ended tragically. At a recent Operation Snowball* retreat, the teens wrote a skit entitled “Asking for Help.” In the first performance, one of the teens was struggling mightily with challenges life mercilessly hurled in her path. Despite her overwhelming heartbreak and pain, she never asked for help. Those around her, even if
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How should we understand human suffering? I received a call from a young man who began the conversation by declaring “I have a gun in my lap and when we finish talking, I intend to use it.” This young man’s life, and sense of self, were defined by exploitation. He had been abused in every
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A friend recently left her youngest son at college, and is struggling with the emotions erupting inside her. I was reminded of a piece I wrote many years ago when we took our son to college. (Posted previously in November of 2016.) “What’s happen’n here is a long goodbye.”