Christian Formation

“We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly — spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.” Susan Taylor My soul was renewed this past week by the gift of spending time with our two grandsons. They are ages six and four, and the wonder and curiosity they express about virtually everything around them are infectious. I recently made up something I named the “quiet game” that we play together, one that builds on their innate sense of delight and curiosity. In this game, I set a timer for anywhere from thirty seconds to a minute, and the rules are that we all have to be completely quiet, listening to all the sounds that we hear in the silence. When the timer goes off, everyone takes turns naming the sounds they heard. The beauty of this game is that we…

Two years ago, this month, there was something quite positive happening that also captured global attention. Several hundred million people from around the world tuned in to watch the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle. And while they have also been in the news quite a bit since their wedding day, I actually want to focus in this column on a story about Prince Harry that first aired in the spring of 2017, a year before his wedding. In a very candid interview, Prince Harry talked honestly about his mental health struggles as a young man. I wrote a column about this interview at the time that it was aired, and have now decided it would be worth repeating some of that column. The reason is because so many people are currently facing mental health challenges due to the stress and loss that they are feeling in this…

My annual sharing of the favorite “Momisms” that readers have shared with me has a unique focus this year. I have curated what was sent to me and am sharing the words that are especially relevant to navigating one’s way through a pandemic. What I enjoy most about collecting these words of wisdom from mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and other women in our lives are the stories that readers include about the women they are quoting. I hear stories of women who passed years ago and of ones who have died recently. I hear stories of kind mothers and some who were not. And I hear of stories of fun times and hard ones as well. Quite a few of you shared stories this year of adversity that was overcome, which made what was shared especially relevant to what we are experiencing today. Mother’s Day can be an emotional time. Many…

People have reached out to talk more this week than usual. Many of the conversations I have had have concluded with some version of, “I didn’t expect you to solve anything, I just needed someone to listen. Thank you for being there.” I am always honored when someone trusts me enough to be vulnerable and share the challenges they are facing. People are reaching out more because this sheltering at home is getting arduous. The novelty has long worn off, and the emotional, relational, and economic stresses are mounting. Part of what makes what we are all experiencing so difficult is there isn’t anything any of us can do to fix it. This is when listening becomes even more critical. There are times when the goal of listening to someone talk about a challenge is so we can offer a possible solution. For example, if someone is struggling with how…

“We may not ever understand why we suffer or be able to control the forces that cause our suffering, but we can have a lot to say about what the suffering does to us, and what sort of people we become because of it.” — Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People There is wisdom in the J curve, for it helps us to understand what we experience during times of significant change and disruption. Note from the diagram that the vertical axis of the J curve is “Stability,” while the horizontal access is “Resilience/Growth.” When change occurs in our lives, the graphic shows that stability begins to decline. When change is significant—a move, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, or as now, experiencing a pandemic, the decline in stability can be steep. One natural reaction to a sudden experience of…

(Several years ago, I wrote a column similar to this for Easter. What I wrote seems particularly relevant for the unprecedented circumstances we now find ourselves in, and so I have updated it for this year.) For those of us who celebrate Easter in the northern hemisphere, we are blessed to be surrounded by abundant symbols of resurrection and rebirth, including the new buds on the trees, the return of birds that have been south for the winter, the lengthening of the days, and the overall warming temperatures. For me, though, there is one sign in nature that is the most meaningful indicator of new life this time of year, one that is probably easy to overlook…the ground begins to soften. First, the snow melts, and then gradually, the ground that has been covered and frozen all winter begins to thaw and soften. One thing I love about the ground…

I am finding that the ongoing experience of the pandemic is similar to having a large application open on my computer’s desktop. It is always there, running in the background. And even if I’m not currently thinking about the pandemic, it is still there, zapping energy from all the other applications I am trying to operate. This metaphor helps me to understand why so many of us are all feeling a bit “off” right now. We may turn the news off for a while and try not to think about what is happening, but there is no way to “force quit” what’s going on in the world. I share this in hopes that it can give us all permission to be a little more patient and gentle with ourselves and everyone whom we encounter. The mental and spiritual health challenges are mounting for all of us. How could it be…