Philbrick’s The Last Stand Reading Before Bedtime David and I have been reading a historical narrative written by Nathaniel Philbrick titled The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of The Little Bighorn. This of course is the true story of various Indian tribes and American soldiers who had fought for the confederacy during…

Our family cemetery Of Cemeteries and Loved Ones This is about taking care of our loved ones as best as we can — given that they are all deceased and in the cemetery! A couple of Sundays ago, after church, we stopped by Fresh Market and picked up four or five bunches of fresh, beautiful…

Walking Our chief form of exercise is our daily walk around the neighborhood … which frequently turns into a social event also, because we know — more or less — the folks around our block as we make our daily, half-hour round. How folks are, who is missing, how everybody is doing on this latest…

My mother Communion of Saints   A number of years ago — out of the blue — I thought of a priest — Father Ralph — who I hadn’t thought of in years. Ralph provided instruction for me to become a Roman Catholic convert at age 16. We had lost touch with each other over…

The Art of Stillness: Let’s Revisit Pico Iyer’s Great Book! This is actually a reposting of a review I wrote about Pico Iyer’s book, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (Simon and Schuster, 2014). It’s a great book — as I think I made clear before and again now. So in case you…

Family Histories: All That Makes Us Who We Are As a psychologist, I realize that the whole topic of family histories, and how they shape who we are as people, is fraught with complexity. But I have a particular family history that is mine and I would like to share it with you. So here…

Decluttering our Lives If you have ever been to our house or driven by, you will have seen a large Tulip Poplar at the end of our driveway near the street. That tree was not “well” and needed to be dealt with one way or another. We had an arborist come over and he made…

Pico Again and the Joy of Silence In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still. You can go on…

Pico Iyer Speaks of the Benefits of Silence I think I have mentioned (many times?) that my time for spiritual reading is mid-afternoon, when I can have some “unstructured time” (as my youngest son puts it) in my room. And several years ago I discovered the writing of Pico Iyer when I picked up his…

Alexei Navalny Speaks From the Grave Some of you know that for the better part of a year, I spent my afternoon reading sessions slowly reading the prison diary collected and published last year by Alexei Navalny’s widow, Julia Navalny (Alexei Navalny Patriot: A Memoir, Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). It’s a very big book and…