Making Meaning in Our Lives: Irrational Leaps into the Unknown I don’t know about you, but looking back over my life – from late adolescence to just about now – I have made choices and decisions across my days and years, not based on rational considerations like a cost-benefit analysis, but based on deep…

  Anxious? Depressed? Well, Try Dancing! Or Singing! For many years, usually in the evening, I would turn on the record player – 45s or LPs (that tells you how many years back I’m talking about), or the radio or, more recently, Pandora on my cell phone or iPad. And I would dance – in…

  Never Again … and Again … and Again: The Drumbeat of War “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” With this line the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, closed a CNN interview on Sunday evening, April 24. More about that later (and see second…

Waving the Flag: A Symbol of a People’s Spirit and a Symbol of Hope for Us All Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, David and I bought a Ukrainian flag online. When it arrived we unpacked it and David asked, “Which color goes up?” Of course we Googled it and discovered blue was up, so we…

Relaxation, Mindfulness, and a Visit with the Past Now the name Herbert Benson might not ring a bell with you, but that bell clanged for me. Dr. Benson died last month at the age of 86. He was a well-known and respected cardiologist at Harvard and a pioneer in the early days of the mind-body…

“My Country, ‘Tis of Thee;” or, It Can’t Happen Here. (Can it?) Years ago – I think it was in the 1930s, during the rise of Nazism and fascism generally – Sinclair Lewis wrote a book titled It Can’t Happen Here (see lead photo). And although it was before my time, I believe he concluded…

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: A Good Man, a Saint in His Own Time and Ours I met Archbishop Tutu when I visited South Africa in 2016. He was a Patron of Volmoed – a wonderful conference and retreat center – from 1990 to 2021. I was staying at Volmoed while visiting my friends John and Isobel…

We Can Be Amazingly Good! Seriously! And When You See Goodness in Front of You, It’s Awesome! Maybe like so many of you, we hit the road for Thanksgiving. Or rather we hit the skyways, taking a flight across country through Dallas to Ontario, California, to spend Thanksgiving with my youngest son Kevin and his…

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…