just enough light

I’ve thought about my last entry about giving up childhood fears. I don’t think the goal is to give up childhood fears. The goal is to give up the addictive thinking that those fears produce. I suspect we all have that addictive thinking. Here’s what I mean. As I described a couple of days ago, […]

I spent the first part of my day traveling by air from Abilene to St. Louis. I don’t much like traveling by air, but it is so often the quickest and most convenient way to go. Traveling by air brings up all kinds of control issues for me. Of course, control issues are usually grounded […]

Several years ago, when I began considering an early retirement, I was not too worried about being bored. I had already made the decisions that I wanted to spend much of my time working as a handyman, for myself and others. I also wanted to write. My bigger concern was the idea that I would […]

Mandate: “Don’t be lazy.” Corollary: “Stay busy. If you aren’t busy, look busy.” I’m not sure if “Don’t be lazy” was a spoken mandate, but I certainly internalized it as a driving force in my daily routine. During childhood, my brothers and I were active, always up to something. And my parents were busy, Mom […]

My continued series about unloading my wagon of emotional baggage: “Don’t disappoint others.” This was one of many mandates I internalized during my childhood. This comes from my earliest role and my perceived job in the family. That’s the subject of a bunch of writing I don’t have time for now. This need to not […]

Yesterday, I asked the question, “What’s in your wagon?” The wagon is that load of psychological, emotional, and religious baggage that we drag around all the time, often without even knowing it. Well, as is often the case, I no sooner asked myself that question than life presented me with a reminder. I hate it […]

I’ve been writing about a box of papers this week, tossing out things that were once important but are no longer. Encumbrances. That process will continue from now on, because I continue to accumulate stuff (clothes, books, tools, etc.) and then have to make room for it by getting rid of other stuff. The junk […]

Faith does not inoculate us from struggle. Religious practice does not protect us from calamity. My spiritual autobiography written my first semester in seminary (I wrote about it on Tuesday), did not include these observations. It was an airbrushed account of a well-intentioned, but largely unexamined faith. The description of my family was idealized by […]

Thinking back on yesterday’s writing, I have written other “spiritual autobiographies” since that one in 1971. Each represents a different time in my life, a different understanding of myself, my history, my place in the world. As I looked back through that “Personal Document” from 1971, I came back to a phrase by Parker Palmer, […]

Going through a box of old papers is always fascinating. Memories, feelings, and people are attached to many of the papers. Some are stark reminders of how my life and my thoughts have changed. One particular paper I found was 22 pages long, typed on erasable bond paper. Are you old enough to remember erasable […]