“What Do Parents and Children Owe One Another?” – My Interview with Harriet Brown
I am pleased to bring you the thinking of today's guest, Harriet Brown. She is a writer, magazine editor and professor of magazine journalism at the Newhouse School of...
Friday Blog: Circles of Inclusion
My Dad Is the Pale Guy in the Middle This week’s blogs have been about “circles of inclusion.” I grew up on a leprosy compound in Paraguay, South America. My husband Ed and I are currently writing an historical novel about the...
Personal Transformation: The Most Valuable Gift of COVID-19
I have suggested in prior articles that we all have circles of belonging that delineate who’s included in our in-groups and who represents the ‘other’ in our out-groups. Most of us divide the world into...
From Guest Blogger Apricot Irving: On Belonging
Apricot Irving, award-winning author of The Gospel of Trees I am sitting on the steps of an 8’x11’ shed (though I prefer to call it a tiny house) in a green meadow, just down the hill from the house that I share with two...
Personal Transformation: On Becoming Uncomfortable
My Grandson Trying On New Pants Which Leg Do You Habitually Step into First? My podcast and blogs this week explored the sense of familiarity and belonging that the groups we are part of (e.g., social class, family, etc.) provide for us. It...
Personal Transformation: Finding a Bigger, Stronger “We”
Belonging means feeling part of a group. It’s “we-ness.” Social identity theory proposes that the groups we belong to (e.g., social class, family, etc.) are typically important sources of pride and self-esteem. They also give us a...
Turning Thirteen During COVID-19
There’s a lot of discussion about the risks of COVID-19 for the elderly. But I worry more about the impact of this pandemic on our just-turned-teenager grandson. He’s at the stage in life when he’s very...
“Making Peace with Questions that May Never Be Answered” – My Interview with Liz Scott
I am pleased to bring you the thinking of today's guest, Elizabeth Scott. Liz is a psychologist in private practice in Portland, and she is...
Personal Transformation: Broken Wide Open to Embrace New Beliefs
Monday’s blog explored the illusions of perfection I’ve hidden beneath — about my family, about my society — which have temporarily made me feel secure and satisfied in my own little bubble. But illusions of a perfect world in the...
Personal Transformation: My Illusions of a Just World
Machu Picchu (even this seemingly perfect world was built by slaves) I grew up knowing it was wrong to be a racist. And I convinced myself that we were making progress, as individuals, as communities, as a nation and as a world....