Lent is approaching, a season associated with penitence (“regret for wrongdoing; contrition”), so perhaps we should talk about sin. Few theological concepts are as mangled and misinterpreted as the concept of sin. Yet we find the subject off-putting. We don’t understand it well because we prefer not to discuss it. Growing up, many of us [...]
Over half of my life I operated from a perspective of scarcity. During that time, according to my skewed perception, everyone was a competitor or critic, always judging and potentially threatening, and nothing felt secure. It seemed just when I had something in hand, it would be whisked away. So everything had to be white-knuckled [...]
A clip from my audio journal about ego wrestling, and learning to surrender to growth.
I have a hunch we are steeped in enchantment, unawares. That just beyond the scrim of our distracted, worried, pre-frontal-cortex-bound lives, are goings on (vivid and undeterred by our inability to see) that we would not want to miss—if only we knew we had choice in the matter. In a way, quantum physicists are introducing [...]
Dear Graduate Congratulations! Today, you graduate. You may be graduating with honors or by the skin of your proverbial teeth. You may even receive an empty diploma cover, your graduation contingent on summer school. Throughout your life you are not going to care. You won’t care if you have five tasseled cords around your neck, [...]
Among my vivid early memories is a betrayal. I was in seventh grade, at a middle-school Halloween dance, dressed in the football uniform I’d borrowed from the boy I liked. The year prior, my best friend—the most cherished friend of my youth—moved away. But that weekend she was in town and showed up at the [...]
In the weeks since the explosions of ‘Me Too’, I’ve taken time to reflect on my own recollections. Though I’m fortunate to have not experienced sexual harassment in my professional life, I have experienced abuse in personal relationships—and have written about that elsewhere. In my professional life what I have witnessed are ways men acknowledge [...]