This is overly autobiographical but I mean it as an illustration. It points toward something true for all of us, especially right now. I learned about the covert nature of grief the hard way. I … [Read more...]
Healing?
I do not know how to introduce this topic so that readers on the left and the right won’t immediately react by rejecting or embracing it as political. I would rather us take a deep breath and ponder … [Read more...]
The Healing of a Cool Rain on a Dark Morning
Six-thirty in the morning is dark again, an envelope of stillness as dog and I walk beneath the canopy of trees along the street. No other human or canine life was visible this morning, suppressed … [Read more...]
Tending to National Character
An unusual email arrived following upon a recent “friending” through the increasingly oldster Facebook network. An eighty-something retired minister I knew decades ago, contacted me along with several … [Read more...]
The Cat That Fell From On High
When I was in seminary there was a guy who had a fat, furry cat in his third floor dorm room, and it would rest on the windowsill of the open window swishing its tail back and forth all day. It was a … [Read more...]
Denim Spirit: Death and Gratitude
http://subversivepreacher.org/denim-spirit-death-and-gratitude/ In dim light and thick air, when heavy emotions wet the atmosphere as life leaves the human body, there is an exquisite holiness … [Read more...]
Denim Spirit: Death and Gratitude
http://www.fltimes.com/opinion/denim-spirit-of-death-and-gratitude/article_32d9307e-648f-11e6-8329-df20461db823.html In dim light and thick air, when heavy emotions wet the atmosphere as life … [Read more...]
Practice Change
This post first appeared as one in a series of regular columns in The Finger Lakes … [Read more...]
Healing
A Thank-You Note, by Michael Ryan For John Skoyles My daughter made drawings with the pens you sent, line drawings that suggest the things they represent, different from any drawings she — at … [Read more...]
Spiritual Healing
Spiritual Healing This is adapted from a talk originally given for a Twelve Step recovery event in 2012 I am going to begin with a story that may make us a little uncomfortable but it rushes … [Read more...]