One Christmas afternoon many years ago, I answered a call on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK) from a young man in middle school. Through oceans of tears he told me how he and his father argued almost constantly. All he wanted to know was whether his father loved him. It broke my heart. We …
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.” …
Just released on Amazon.com (www.amazon.com/dp/0692920196/), my new book entitled: Questions That Matter From the back Cover: Would you be willing to share with me, why you want to live? This question, asked of people so bereft of joy and connection that they have considered ending their lives, has taught Roger Breisch much about life and …
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” I have been deeply moved by the work and words of Bryan Stevenson. His book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” shattered my view of criminal justice, and informed my understanding of what it means to be human. How many, even …
“Your analysis of your life and its failures has the ring of truth since congruent with your self-preoccupation.” This comment appeared unbidden on my blog. It evoked a great deal of thought and reflection about what occupies my life…and what should. My first reaction was colored by fear and humiliation, with various shades of self-recrimination. …
Note: The following will be published in the May/June issue of Neighbors of Batavia Magazine. “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” Neil Postman I love Neil Postman’s insight, even though it speaks so forcefully of my own mortality. There will be, in the briefest of moments, a …