This website is a compilation of things I have written for presentations, workshops, newsletters, newspapers, and just for fun. They span my years in church ministry, my career as a psychologist, my roles as a parent, a spouse, a friend, and a brother. Many are simply my mental, emotional, and spiritual wanderings through this life as it comes to me.
The subtitle for this website is “Living, loving, and growing in uncertain times.” Of course, we’ve always lived in uncertain times. It’s just more obvious today. Changes in every aspect of life just keep coming at us with increasing speed.
One thing life has taught me is that our judgment always lags behind our experience. Life drops something in our laps, a crisis hits, the world shakes in some way, and we’re left with trying to decide how to respond to something we weren’t ready for and don’t fully understand. We’re always playing catch-up. We’re always having to make things up in the moment. I am rarely prepared for what life presents me, and the more surprising it is, the more I have to scramble to understand, explain, or just cope.
I often feel like I have built a temporary scaffolding to stand on while I’m building something more permanent. Yet, the blue print change constantly and the permanent structure is always under construction. The scaffolding which was to have been temporary becomes the structure I must rely on. Most of my writing is done from that temporary scaffolding.
I have tried to write from my experience, given that I am still learning, still playing catch-up. Some of the articles are from my time working with thousands of college students as a counselor. The last 10 years of my work at the university afforded me the privilege of being an instructor for 200 incredible students who became my teachers.
I also had the chance to meet with and talk with hundreds of parents of college students. Many of the articles are from those experiences and from the opportunity I had to write for the campus newsletter to parents.
As a psychologist, one of the specialties I developed was grief work. I worked with many students who were groping their way through significant losses. Many had recently experienced the death of a parent or sibling, some had been in accidents when friends were killed. Walking patiently with young adults who are trying to make sense of the death of a loved one is a humbling experience. I cherished the opportunities to be invited into those most sacred and painful moments.
My years working in church ministry also provided me with an important perspective. Though I have journeyed far from my original religious roots, I value the grounding and perspective those formative years provided. I hope the perspectives of faith and spirit come through all the things I have written.
I hope you enjoy what you read. No, actually I hope you experience some register on what one of my brothers calls his “discomfort index,” that nagging, stirring something that registers when he is forced to think or feel something he wasn’t expecting. Maybe the discomfort index is indicating that it’s time to take another step.
Just as a kerosene lantern gives light only to the immediate surroundings, so life gives us just enough light and dispels just enough darkness to take our next tentative step.