Sometimes words spin around in my head and even spill out of my mouth before others have finished speaking. When I do that, I’m barely listening to them. It feels almost like I’m in a competition to get my thoughts out quickly to make…
Award-winning journalist John Leland spent a year visiting with six culturally diverse seniors, all eighty-five and older. In his book Happiness Is A Choice You Make, he weaves together the stories and lessons he learned from them about aging with grace and joy. The lessons…
The Caucasus Mountains in Georgia Racism, the belief that one race is superior to another, is a big and weighty topic. I don’t begin to think that I can do it justice in one short blog. But I want to address just one form of racism…
My parents in 1951 In 1951, my parents Dr. John and Clara Schmidt founded and ran a leprosy station in Paraguay, South America. After 20 years of devoted service to ease the suffering of cast out untouchables, they were asked to leave. They’re gone now….
As a Christian, I grew up with the certain knowledge that salvation from hell could only come through believing in Jesus Christ as my savior. This is nothing unusual. Most of the world’s religions have some concept of heaven and hell and what it…
Our vehicle bounced over and around deep potholes in the rutted one-lane dirt road, deep into the countryside of the Republic of Georgia. There were 20 of us. Pilgrims, we called ourselves, traveling through Georgia for two weeks, taking in the country’s ancient traditions…
When I made the decision nearly 40 years ago to leave my first husband and father of my two children, many well meaning friends and family members lectured me, saying I needed to have the guts to stay in the relationship and make it…
Mother’s Day always brings up complicated memories of my first taste of motherhood nearly 50 years ago, in November of 1969: Something seemed terribly wrong. My lower abdomen was swollen and sore. I could no longer keep food down, and had lost nearly ten…
Have you ever resented the way someone demonstrated their caring and love for you? Even though you knew they meant well? I have. And I’d like to learn how to not do this to people I care about. While researching my parents’ lives for a forthcoming…
…and Without Needing to Fix It My last post ended with this: “In 1971, I was married and pregnant with my first child. I was preoccupied with the business of trying to be a good wife and mother. In the process, I was an inattentive daughter…