Christian Formation

This past weekend my wife and I were in Washington DC leading a training for people who will be using our Living Compass wellness resources in their communities. We had limited free time, but were determined to get to one particular memorial, one that had opened since our last visit to the DC area, the World War II Memorial. My father served in the Navy during World War II and at the age of twenty-one was on one of the first landing craft vehicles to land on Utah Beach on D-Day. In his later years (he died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight) he often talked of his friends who died all around him that fateful day, wondering why he had survived and had lived a long life while their lives had been cut short. Visiting the World War II was, not surprisingly, an emotional experience for me, as…

If you have ever been to a live orchestra performance, you know that there is always a profound pause when a performance of a musical piece concludes, just before the audience begins to applaud. The pause seems to be a collective opportunity for everyone to fully absorb the beauty they have just experienced before expressing their appreciation. Last week a nine-year-old boy created a magical moment at Boston Symphony Hall at the conclusion of the Handel and Haydn Society’s performance of Mozart’s “Masonic Funeral Music.” He filled the pause at the end of the performance with a spontaneous “Wow!” that was loud enough for the 2,500 people in attendance to hear. The audience laughed in recognition of his expressing precisely what they were all feeling, and then broke out in applause. This boy’s “Wow!” became a viral sensation as a recording of the moment spread across social media. If you…

If I were to ask you if you have a favorite scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz, what would come to mind? Flying monkeys? A melting witch? The Lollipop Guild? A singing scarecrow? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my? For me, it’s the scene where Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals that the previously fear-inducing Wizard of Oz is in truth just a frightened, insecure man, who at that very moment implores Dorothy and her companions to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” I love that scene because I can so easily relate to it and because I reference it so often in the work I do as a marriage and family therapist. In the context of our closest relationships, when are we most likely to treat others rudely? I know for me, it is when I am feeling most vulnerable, insecure, and…

How would you respond if someone said to you, “I am taking pictures of things that I find beautiful, and I find you beautiful, so can I please take a picture of you”? A high school student ran a social experiment a few years ago and did this exact thing. She made a video of the reactions that the students and faculty at her high school had to hearing that they are beautiful. In the second half of the video, the student conducting the social experiment followed up telling people she finds them beautiful, with a question, “What’s one thing that you think is beautiful or unique about yourself?” You can find the link to her video at the bottom of this piece to see the variety of responses. The student running the experiment wondered why it is so uncomfortable for people to think of themselves as beautiful. After watching…