We all have a choice about how we look at the world: we can look with only our eyes and believe that what we see is all there is to see, or we can look with faith, though our heart, our eyes, our fullness...

Join me as we practice using the psalms as a guide and taking a small inspired step each week from what we have read.

...by being married for almost twenty years. I get a annoyed by the surfeit of ‘top ten’ blog posts on lessons for marriage from the first year. I’m not suggesting you can’t learn anything in your first year being married, but if you take your advice from just the first year you are going to have a hard time getting through all the years that come after.

Different animals seem to have different magic about them. There are of course the unique traits of individuals and breeds but if you can generalize about animal magic certain species seem to be better at certain things than others. Dogs, I believe, are particularly good at love magic. One of my dogs has love power that can change your mood. Some people might call this an extraordinary empathy.

It's not politically correct to question "science," you either believe science or you think the world is 3,000 years old and people used to ride dinosaurs. I feel like maybe it isn't quite that black and white, science after all is about asking questions and making observations. Sometimes, when you have observed something happen a particular way enough times you draw a conclusion.

I am fluent in one language. Obviously that makes it slightly harder to travel to countries where my language is not the language, but thanks to the enormity of influence that is and has been English speaking countries it doesn't present too much of a problem. I'm not saying that my mono-lingual state is okay or acceptable, I'm just acknowledging the facts.

I have a habit of biting the inside of my cheeks when I am contemplative. I will find myself sitting in my office, working out some kind of issue and will notice that I have sucked in my cheeks and am holding them with my teeth. I do that a lot when I am writing as well. This particular habit affects exactly one person in the world, me.

Gazoil and diesel are the same thing, maybe you new this because you speak French. Maybe you did not know this and by following what you thought were the directions on the gas cap and the pump you found yourself stranded in a medieval village in the French countryside. I did the latter and so this is a story about dealing with frustration, fear, anger and disappointment.

That's what little children say when they are declaring their independence, their readiness to take on the task that you might think you want to do or that they need you to do. "I do it," my tiny daughter would say, confidently. Not asking a question like, "can I try," or even suggesting an opportunity, "maybe I'm ready, let's see." No she was saying she was going to do it, the outcome would be hers and it was time to step back.

The plan was to take the train from Brussels to Toulouse. Eight hours of watching the country scenery, reading, writing and having the experience of being on the rails. Also I don't like to fly so this was a great way to have a train adventure and stay closer to the ground. Total travel time was not going to be that much longer than if I flew.

I would like to say that I can spend an entire day at the museum, taking in the art/history/learning and whatnot and retain all of this information for later use in sounding smart and sophisticated in places where that is helpful. Probably at a cocktail party or sitting on the sidelines of my child's sporting event chatting with people to whom I have no idea what to actually chat about.

and rambling a bit on the nature of travel. Travel is a marvelous thing for many reasons, but should to be confused with 'vacation.' There may be overlap but there may not and one should not assume that because vacations often involve travel, travel will also involve a vacation. I travel for work a lot, no vacation in that for sure.

(Tales of the animals part 4) I have been away from the furry creatures for approximately five days with many days to go so of course they are top of mind... Experts say that if you want to have a well-behaved dog you have to make sure they know who is charge. They are pack animals and need to understand who the leader is.

Many years ago, when my children were very little I had an enormous kitchen garden. It is a great trick to get small children to eat vegetables, if they grow them so they will eat! It is also a great way to learn about biodiversity, life cycles, nature and oneself. In the early fall we would buy ladybugs to release into the garden.

I am not a nurse by trade. Neither am I in any of the professions that might commonly come into contact with things being expelled from bodies. I deal in the world of ideas, theory, books and paper, that is what I do. I have a deep respect for people who are care givers, who clean up the mess the rest of us leave, who tend to us when we are unwell and not at our tidiest.

In less than two weeks I will be presenting 'til now at the Refocus on Recovery conference in London. I am excited, nervous, and of course busy planning! Below is an excerpt from 'til now that I will be reading as part of my larger talk on finding ways to own your own reality, live your truth, and make choices based on the life you are living, not a life defined by another's addiction or 

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the experience of parenting, about children and the growing up they do while we are busy parenting them, and about the growing up we do as parents during that time, and all the time really. There is a very rapid growing up that happens for about fifteen years, and then a period of tumultuous refinement, and then the settling into a slower maturation of adulthood with its own various stages and adjustments.

If I had to pick a place to be it would very likely be somewhere near water. I don’t love being in water, unless it is very warm outside or very warm in the water (I don’t like being cold), but I do very much like being water adjacent. That is, I like being able to put my feet in the water, and walk next to the water, to smell the water and be within sight for sure.

I was curious when I saw the headline "These 4 rules will let you know when it is okay to lie." 'Oh really,' I thought, 'someone has figured out when it is no longer bad to be dishonest and how to avoid the slippery slope that follows the white-lies are okay crowd.' I read the article and will summarize: 1) don't lie to yourself because this is called denial and you can't deal with the reality of your life if you don't acknowledge that reality, 2) don't over-share where it is not appropriate, and 3) go ahead and lie if you want to destroy a relationship.

“I’m older than I once was, younger than I’ll be that’s not unusual.” So says Paul Simon and it’s a simple truth at every moment of our lives. I live in an area where we have pushed the notion of being young well into middle age and so my sense of time and aging has skewed even while I operate on a different schedule of sorts.

The box is made of a blondish wood. It has a wave pattern to the grain and is very smooth. I have not seen the box in many years. I remember it being about 12 inches long and 6 inches tall. Maybe 6 inches wide as well. It is a rectangle and the top comes completely off. The top itself is carved out on the inside so you can safely put something in it when it is off and flipped over, like a tray.

I've been married for a longish time by today's standards - almost 19 years. And since I got married at 21 I feel like I should get some bonus year points for marrying against the odds of youth (though in truth I don't agree with the common opinion on it being bad to marry young). So anyway, almost 19 years, together for over 20 I feel like that gets me the privilege of having an opinion on how to sustain a good marriage.

Bullying. Where do you start with a topic like bullying? I suspect that everyone has an immediate reaction to the word. You remember having been bullied, you remember times in your life when you didn’t act as your best possible self, you think about the experience of your child today or what you see on the playground when you visit a school.

what it is… Spiritual Direction is a guided conversation with your soul. Where are you, where are you going, and how do you relate to the world as a spiritual being are some of the questions …

Ask me anything, anonymously or not, and I'll give a VOICE reply!🔊