just enough light

For a person like me who grew up in a religious home, who attended church and read the Bible regularly, whose life was dominated by the admonition to “follow God’s will,” unlearning God is a real challenge. Yes, unlearning God. The lectionary text for this Sunday in many Protestant churches is the verse that reads, […]

In my reading this morning, Natalie Goldberg reflects on her life after the death of her teacher with whom she had studied for years. She described her-face to-face meetings with him, “I had friends, acquaintances I interacted with, and we sat facing each other across luncheon tables, but this was a man whose life work […]

I’m never upset for the reasons I think. Students who came to the Counseling Center seeking help were asked to fill out a form with some biographical information. This gave the counselor a little background before the student walked in and took a seat in the office. On the form was a space for the […]

This entry is a slight deviation from where I have been going for the past few days. Whenever I experience a convergence of thoughts, ideas, and experiences, I take note. The past few days have been just such a convergence. Convergence One: I spent a couple of days thinking and writing about the Prodigal Son. […]

“You are never upset for the reasons you think.” This sentence caught my attention many years ago and has not left me. It serves as a frequent remind whenever I get attached to my righteous indignation, my zeal for a particular cause, my dismissal of another person’s cause, my impatience or anger at someone. This […]

It’s easy to cheer for the Prodigal Son, the young man who rebelled, ran away from home, squandered his inheritance, hit the bottom, had a transformative experience (woke up), and came home to the waiting arms of his father who never gave up on him. It’s the stuff of Hallmark movies, except Hallmark does not […]

Yesterday I wrote about the boy who woke up, the story of The Prodigal Son. The way I see him, he was the young man who had to turn his back on his family and childhood structure in order to mature enough to finally “come to himself.” It was not until he sank so low […]

Today across the country, many ministers are preaching about the parable we call the Prodigal Son. This is perhaps the best known and best loved of Jesus’ parables. This story in the Gospel of Luke is the suggested text in the lectionary, the guide followed by many denominations for suggested worship themes for each Sunday […]

I’m reading Natalie Goldberg’s The Great Failure this morning. She wrote of her Zen master’s words, “My job is to make you dumb.” She went on to write that “dumb” was a compliment in Zen. “It meant you weren’t running ahead of yourself, planning, organizing, strategizing. You were open to receive the world as it […]

More about legitimate suffering and needless suffering. Almost all of my misery is needless. That is, it’s mostly contrived, based on my assumptions about what should or should not be happening. By misery, I mean anger, frustration, boredom, restlessness, worry, angst, and all the other emotional states that make my days longer and probably shorten […]