“I wish I read your Sabbath Moment before my meeting,” my friend, a hospice chaplain, tells me. “I was just with my hospice supervisor. Her question to me, ‘What are your long term goals?’” “I wanted to laugh out loud,” she…
"How shall I account for the two, or the ten, missing years on my résumé? How should I explain the gap?" These are questions asked of Dr. Kimberley Patton, by students at Harvard Divinity School, fretful and uneasy in the application…
A funny thing happened on my way to writing this week’s Sabbath Moment.I walked out of a Subway eatery, sandwich in hand. The sun’s warmth heaven-sent and calming. Creedence in my ear buds (“Who’ll Stop the Rain”). And a wave…
I try not to cry on airplanes. It’s not kosher. And, it looks eccentric.But when I watch movies or read books that tug at my heart, I cry. I used to be self-conscious about it. But not so much anymore.…
When your internal conversation begins, “I wish my life were different,” your headaches have only just begun. This is not a quarrel that will end well. You see, when I kick into my compulsion to fix, or figure out, or…
In 1995 Volkswagen ran an ad. The ad conjured up what it felt like to drive their car. Taking it around fast curves. Or over rocky desert roads. It felt liberating and precarious and unbound. What I do remember best are the…
It is pumpkin time. And our leaf theatre amazes and soothes and mesmerizes and charms. It has been our best October ever. And yet, our emotional earth shakes. Again. The news—the mail bombs, the hate crime in Louisville, the Tree…
We walked along the shore of Lake Michigan, on the campus of Northwestern University, our backdrop the straight-edge line of a powder-blue horizon toward the east, and the Chicago skyline to the south. My friend and I had nowhere to go, and weren't in…
I’m in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with my Father, my son Zach, my brothers and their sons. It’s an all boy vacation summit—10 of us—time to impart wisdom to the young men. Now we need to remember what we wanted to…
New to both the town and the church, Ellen wanted to be involved, to give of herself, to share her gifts. As it happened, the parish needed a new tapestry for one of the smaller chapels. And as a seamstress, Ellen considered…
