My Mennonite Ancestors Evicted from their Homes in Russia – Makes Me Angry! In 1965, during a time of deep divisiveness and wounding in this country, Hal David wrote the lyrics to Burt Bacharach’s seminal song: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love It’s the…
I can’t really do anything other than be here — now This pandemic has at least temporarily ripped apart any illusions of permanence. But I find myself already trying to identify and claim the quasi-permanence of the next ‘new normal.’ Normal is that…
My grandson and I before the pandemic I am busier than I’ve ever been: Blogging, preparing for podcast interviews, interviewing, being interviewed myself, and writing the first draft of our biographical novel – with time squeezed in for exercise and…
The question “Are conflicts damaging my intimate relationship?” is very meaningful to me. I’ve known both extremes — a relationship that was almost entirely conflict-free, and one with quite a bit more conflict than usual. Quite a while ago, I published a story “Is a…
I am pleased to bring you the thinking of today’s guests, CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke. Partners in work and in life for over two decades, they’ve adapted their proven step-by-step process, which they honed while working with numerous Fortune 100 companies,…
These are unusual times, bringing with them unusual amounts of stress for many. So I thought I’d repost a version of a blog I wrote about the best way I’ve learned to reduce stress, and to find silence and peace in the midst…
Ed and I Walking in Silence Here are two of my favorite quotes about “silence,” which has been the topic of this week’s blogs: The first one offers a place for our soul to lie down and notice that the world is too full to talk…
Silent at the Cruz de Ferro on El Camino de Santiago Last week, my thirteen-year-old grandson asked me to help him write an argumentative essay. It was part of his homework in his now virtual classroom. I admit it. I had to…
What do Victor Hugo (French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement, born in 1802), Aldous Huxley (English writer and philosopher, born in 1894) and Johnny Depp (American actor, singer, producer, and musician, born in 1963) have in common? Music expresses that which cannot…
# 634 in the German Mennonite songbook in the photo above is Ach Mein Herr Jesu, Wenn Ich Dich Nicht Hätte. It was my father’s favorite hymn, and we sang it often as a family. When I hear it today, seventeen years after…