Last week I led a Celebration of Love service at the senior community where I serve as a chaplain. The following reflection is based on the readings of The Good Samaritan, 1 Corinthians 13, and an excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit. Eight months ago, a made a firm commitment to become more loving. This had something to do with my overreaction at seeing a piece of permanent artwork on the forearm of my daughter. I did not adhere to the sage advice of a gentle soul among you who pulled out her Bible and pointed to the lines in the Book of James, “Be slow to speak, slow to anger.” In full disclosu ..read more

On Thanksgiving, I had the honor of leading a prayer service at the senior community where I serve as a chaplain. Following is my reflection. Those of you who attend the dementia support group on Tuesday mornings might recognize the name of Oliver Sacks. He was a British neurologist who penned several bestselling books, mostly collections of case studies, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which later became an opera.  The New York Times dubbed Sacks “the poet laureate of medicine” for developing and promoting a way of treating patients with neurological disorders ..read more

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt often gets credit for the line, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” The correct attribution may go to Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich who used that line in a graduation speech she penned for young students. Included in her list of advice was: Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the ..read more

I had grown to love this resident. A chaplain at a senior community, I saw him at least once a week and he made me laugh. In his mid 90s, he had started to fail only in the last two months. I was informed over the weekend that his hours were numbered. I ran to his bedside Monday morning and held his arm with both of my hands as I prayed that God hold him in light and in peace.  A stream of tears cascaded down my face as I finished the prayer. They continued for a good 20 minutes. Nurses and aids walked back and forth in the hallway, some noticing that I was crying. Suddenly I panicked.&nb ..read more

Today I led a Celebration of Love service at the senior community where I work as a chaplain — a thanksgiving for love past and present. Here is my sermon. Today we are celebrating all the love that we have in our lives. That includes the people we share our day with and also those who have gone before us, whose love endures and is still very much a part of our lives. Today is also about offering thanks to God for his love, which sustains us and helps us not only to love one another, but also to love ourselves. Everything we need to know about love is encapsulated in the two greatest commandme ..read more

This week I am leading a discussion at a senior community on ways to battle the winter blues. Here are some of my talking points. We’ve officially entered the hard months, the “dark ages” as the midshipmen at the Naval Academy say: the time of the year when the sun disappears and the pale complexions of your friends remind you that you had better take your vitamins or else you’ll have a cold to go with your pasty look.  Winter can make achieving good mental health more challenging – especially if being in nature is such a central component to your efforts to stay cheery, as it is mine. Re ..read more

Last Thursday I led the Thanksgiving service at the senior community where I serve as a chaplain. I thought I would post my sermon here. It is written from a Christian perspective, so I invite persons of other faiths to take whatever is meaningful. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is much simpler than Christmas in that it doesn’t involve the pressure of buying the perfect gift for others or lying to your relatives about the thing that was missing from your life until it arrived on your porch: a 20-pound tin of popcorn in every flavor from bubble gum to Old Bay. I love Thanksgiving’s emp ..read more

Mindfulness and meditation aren’t easy for anyone. Whenever we dim the lights and sit in Indian style, there is a core part of our primitive brain that rebels like a hyper puppy in a choke collar: “Don’t do that to me! You know I need to roam!”  But for professional ruminators such as myself, meditation can be damn near impossible. All deliberate attempts to hush thoughts seem to activate them, like the backward response of the white polar bear study – the more the participants were asked not to think about these cuddly guys, the more images of them popped into their psyches.  Medita ..read more

In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, we read that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven – to plant and uproot, to tear down and build, to love and to hate. But I think it’s more accurate to say all of this can happen together in the same season. What we consider to be opposing activities can be done simultaneously. We think we can either weep or laugh, but how many times have we done that with one Kleenex? Isn’t there an occasion where we have danced as part of our mourning, or surrendered as we searched? And isn’t it possible to abhor something – or at l ..read more

One of my least favorite Scripture passages is the one about Mary and Martha. Most Bible thumpers know exactly which one I’m referring to. My not-so-religious friend who found herself in Bible study one afternoon was totally confused.  “I’m sorry, who are we talking about? Martha Stewart?” she asked. The story of Mary and Martha is found in Luke 10:38-42 and also in John 12:2. Mary and Martha are sisters of Lazarus, the guy Jesus raised from the dead. One day Jesus and his disciples were walking through the town of Bethany and decided to drop in on the sisters. Mary immediately drops ever ..read more