Ruby slouched in a corner, bottom lip bulging. The droves of other 2- to 7-year-olds ignored her, since a distressed child was more common than a calm one. I hesitated to speak, anticipating the melodrama that was about to erupt. Then it began: Me: Ruby, what’s wrong? Ruby: I want that toy. M: What toy? […]
The Literature Is Instagram: On Self-Care, Not Self-Help
Sayonara self-help, hello self-care. From The New York Times Kate Carraway traces the evolution of the more rules-based improvement movement into the newer, more feelings-based one. Whereas self-help “sought to categorize and instruct,” self-care now aims to “to soothe and calm.” Overall, the shift is positive: When you’re agitated, angry, or anxious, instead of imposing expectations, […]
Always a Little Homesick
This reflection, drawn from a recent sermon, was written by Amanda McMillen. [Abraham] set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents… They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for […]
Hopelessly Devoted: Mark Chapter Twelve Verses One Through Twelve (The Parable of the Wicked Tenants)
Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from […]
Scared Silly: How Horror and Humor Helped My OCD and Prepared Me for the End of the World
This one was written by Trevor Almy. For Jim Brown and Ian Olson. Ever since I was six years old, I have struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In my early years, my illness manifested itself through an eclectic range of symptoms. I lined up my shoes. I closed closet doors. I pushed the paper […]
Moral Ground Must Be Shored Up By Mercy: In Memory of Toni Morrison
“She is a friend of my mind… The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.” So wrote the famed novelist Toni Morrison in Beloved, in a passage describing a love that goes deeper than the physical, that engenders self-worth. Such love runs throughout many of […]
Welcome to Your Foxhole
I listen to a lot of sad music. As an Enneagram Four, I am drawn to what Ian Morgan Cron calls “delicious melancholy”. I have several playlists on my Spotify dedicated to songs that are guaranteed to make me cry or at least fit the gray mood I often find myself in. This proclivity towards […]
Taking a Walk? Godspeed!
Solvitur ambulando, or “It is solved by walking,” in Latin — a Roman quip probably effused on one of the many roads that leads to (or from) the travertine city. Note the passive voice, which permits the speaker to omit any specific notion of what is actually solved by walking. But perhaps that’s the point […]
The Art of a Good Apology: Our Q&A with Harriet Lerner
Another glimpse into the newest magazine. Order up: they’re going quick! Rare is the 6-year-old kid who, if asked what job they’d like to have when they’re older, would answer “psychologist.” Astronaut or movie star perhaps, but headshrinker? Very few kids even know what the word means! Dr. Harriet Lerner is not your average bear. […]
Pressing the Mute Button Underwater
I’m just old enough to remember Greg Louganis’ dive in the 1988 Olympics, when he cracked his head on the diving platform and suffered a concussion. I’m too chicken to google it, but, given the speed that divers exit the platform and the proximity of their skulls to the hard surface, Greg Louganis can’t be […]
Dive Bars and the Nazarene
This one was written by Matt Magill. It is good to be inebriated on the cup of God’s salvation. – St. Ambrose I don’t drink much… Err…I don’t drink much in public. My wife and I enjoy lots of wine with friends and even a little too much sometimes, if she can keep me up […]
All Suffering Great and Small: What Jeff Tweedy Learned in Rehab
Several of the people I know who are thinking about seeing a therapist seem to be hung up on the idea that they haven’t suffered enough compared to other people. There’s the notion that, somehow, the depression they’re experiencing is discrediting someone else’s more legitimate depression. Meanwhile, it seems whenever people vent about some universal struggle […]
