Depression
What if?
Brennan Manning tells the sweet and simple story of a friend’s elderly uncle who spontaneously skipped on a hill in Ireland, filled with delight of life itself. “Uncle,” the man said, “why are you so happy?” “Ahhhh,” the unc
le replied through his brogue accent in which you could almost hear him grin, “Ohhhhh, you see …” he paused in joy, “the Father is very fond of me. The Father is is so awfully fond of me.” …
Keep Going
There’s a lot going on these days, isn’t there? People want each other to behave the way they want them to behave. They are yelling on Facebook with exclamation points. I commented on a post, which I intended to be a benign, peace-keeping neutral call to non-partisanship on the opioid crisis. A woman responded, “ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!!!” I simply replied, “Yes.” As is said, You don’t have to attend every argument to which you’re invited. 
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Liar
I have character defects, but lying is not one of them — not intentionally anyway. My mother vetted our toddler-to-teen suspect statements with the very wierd question which she posed with life-and-death seriousness, “Honor bright?” she’d say. I have no idea where that lie detector came from but it said that I would not live to see another day if I broke confidence by my honor not being bright. As hard as I tried I could not take my fib past that guard post. So I didn’t latch on to lying. I can’t do it. 
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Read moreLeaving Ourselves Alone
When Ted was in his dark days I pulled down the shades of my life too. The phone would ring and I’d shout at it, “Leave me alone! I’m busy being sad. I just need to be by myself and be so, so sad.”
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Good Things Were Always There
My friend Austin commented, “Sometimes life is worth living because of the way the sun shines in the leaves on the drive home.” In the year 2010 I relayed to my mentor a litany of the things that had gone wrong with Sarah’s life and times in the year 2000. It made for a good story; there were multiple untimely and unsettling deaths, affairs, divorces, budding addictions, relationship quirks and behavioral drama. Basically it was the worst of times but at the time of my telling my mentor about the year nothing went right, it happened to be the best of times. She listened quietly and then said kindly,
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