We all have people, places, situations that trigger us. And we’re dealing with lots of explicit memory and implicit memory at the holidays. Unfortunately, the holidays can sometimes be a minefield. Whether we’re walking into a full holiday party of…
I was sitting in a window seat from Pittsburgh to Atlanta for a noon flight. It was early November. The sun was directly overhead and the sky blue and cloudless. As I leaned my forehead against the plastic…
This particular episode belongs to the breath prayer section of the Presence Project. It’s my real-time learning, the thread I’m holding onto right now. I write to learn, to grow. I write as spiritual practice. This episode is…
Driving behind Andrew’s UHaul, The kids and I were crushed into our minivan with a pile of odds and ends and my mother-in-law who thankfully is a moving genius. It all felt uncomfortably familiar though. This was our third…
Kathy Sicard wrapped the scarf around my head and the world went dark. I felt like I had walked into a movie theater late, groping for chairs, hoping I didn’t end up in somebody’s lap. But Marie…
Brennan Manning in Abba’s Child wrote this: “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” But what is the true self? The true self is the person God had…
It was Christmas, Christmas in a new city. Mom called me with google map directions and I printed them off in my college dorm before. We had packed up the stone ranch in northern Ohio the summer before and…
The Eastern branch of the Huron River ran through our property when I was growing up. It wasn’t much more than a creek, but it was our creek. Crawdads skittered under rocks and the water flowed cold, even…
When mom sat down with Delores that morning, she poured out her fear of change, of isolation, of loneliness on the other side of a big move. Dad had gotten a job at a hospital six hours away near…
We just finished up a series on breath prayer, how this simple practice is rooted in an Ancient Christian tradition as well as the brain science. It is summertime and we’re entering into a new practice which goes hand…