Recovery. Sobriety. Living Wise.
In 1864, during the height of the Civil War, a Union soldier named William McCarter found himself dying of dysentery in a crowded military hospital. The man who nursed him back to health—who fed him, cleaned him, and sat with him through the worst nights, was a Confederate prisoner of war. Mercy knows no enemy. Two men who, by every measure of their time, were … Continue reading Who Would Ever Have Thought?
“Nothing can consume a man more than the passion of resentment.” — Friedrich Nietzsche Have you ever wondered: Why did the Creator give us the capacity for deep resentment? What do we become when resentment slowly eats away at us? What is it about human nature that makes us vulnerable to resentment? How do our insecurities so easily trigger resentment within us? What happens when … Continue reading Antidote to Resentment
Woodrow Wilson observed, “If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” I had an opportunity to examine my conscience a number of years ago on a trip to Bloomington, Indiana to visit Marsha’s parents. It was there I was introduced to a Yorkshire terrier named Dusty. Dusty was a straightforward … Continue reading Living in Your Own Skin
After my recent post on toxic masculinity I found I was drained to the bone. I kept asking myself — how in the name of God will we ever survive ourselves? And then, as so often is the case, I remembered something Abraham Lincoln once said: “The mystic chords of memory… will yet swell…when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of … Continue reading Finding Our Better Angels
“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument for action.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi At a critical time in my life I was introduced to a different kind of praying: one that was constituted around active engagement rather than passive reflection. The kind of praying that gets you off your knees and onto your feet. The … Continue reading A Different Way of Praying