The increasingly pervasive, oft vicious exchanges that permeate our lives, whether they be in person, in the media, or on social media, can easily overwhelm. Those, on top of trying to survive a global pandemic, make daily life ever more challenging. The human brain is a marvelous, complex and adaptive organ that enables us to …
When grace enters my life unexpectedly, the moment often becomes a font of knowledge and wisdom. Operation Snowball is an organization for high school students who want to live healthy lives by keeping an informed and respectable distance between themselves and drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Twice each year a three-day retreat is convened for a …
If who I become in the world is determined by the decisions I make, the more I improve their accuracy and efficacy, the better I am as a person, physically and emotionally. The brain is a marvelous, complex organ, and, while we wish it would make every decision with perfection, it often lets us down. …
There are Universes in our midst, but assumptions can prevent us from experiencing their extraordinary wisdom, beauty, and elegance. What number would you multiply by itself to arrive at -1? Early mathematicians assumed such a number was useless. They referred to it in a derogatory way as imaginary. In the 18th century, mathematicians relinquished that …
Even at the quantum level, as separate and distinct, a single particle has little value. It is only when they are in relationship to other quantum entities that they form the universe. So too for humanity. Absent our intimate relationship to all things, we are nothing. As I write, since I feel my fingers on …
A friend, working his way through my book, Questions that Matter, had just read, and was thinking about, the essay “Patiently Waiting for Me.” In the song “I’m Movin On,” country artists Rascal Flatts sing “Finally I see…life has been patiently waiting for me.” In the essay, I ask if the “me” life is waiting for …
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Frederick Buechner No matter how far we have journeyed, and regardless of age, each of us has many miles to go to fully uncover, and live into, our deep gladness. I am often asked how I …
The call came from a young man in a parked car. He was unmerciful. “I am a horrible, evil person. I don’t deserve to live.” I asked if he would be willing to share what led to such fierce condemnation. Just before he left a nearby store, as he waited in the checkout line, something …
“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.” …
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.” …