I Think I Need a Break! Retreat, Anyone? I have some friends – John and Isobel de Gruchy – who live near Cape Town in South Africa. John is Professor Emeritus of Christian Studies at the University of Cape Town, and his wife, Isobel, is a talented writer and artist. (In fact, one of her…

Don’t Worry! Be Happy! Or Live for Today. Or … Do you remember that Grass Roots’ song, “Let’s Live For Today?” I don’t remember exactly when it came out (sounds so ’60s-ish), but I do remember hearing it some years ago – and now played on my Pandora station frequently. I also remember disapproving of…

Together We Stand; Divided We … Are Much Less Than We Could Be as Humans Some of you may know that for a good chunk of my adolescent and adult years I was a Roman Catholic. I was a convert to that communion during my senior year in high school – much to my parents’…

Enthralled and Falling in Love; Disenthralled: What’s That?¹ I imagine that most of us, at one time or another – be it a first puppy love, maybe a crush on that teenage heartthrob, possibly your spouse and longtime lover – most of us have been enthralled with someone. Fascinated, maybe writing their name over and…

Our Town: Everyone’s Life, the Glory of Now I expect that almost everyone reading this blog has, at one time or another, actually seen Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town. It’s been revived a number of times on Broadway, staged locally in high school gymnasiums across the country, and presented in local venues around the world.…