Why Love? “What is love for?” That was the first question. It was a Sunday afternoon at the Recovery Church meeting. As is typical, we had strayed from our original topic. A phrase in the reading, a chance comment, had struck one or the other of us, and the question was asked: “What is love for?” After a pause, one of us said, “To make life tolerable.” That reminded me of what the fantasy writer, Lloyd Alexander wrote about art. “We have always needed good art to sustain us, to strengthen us, even to console us for being born human.” [1] Love does this, too. Yet love does more than…
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The Love that Saves
Does Love Save? During a recent sharing circle, the question of love came up. What kind of love can save the world, we wondered, and how we might learn to love in that way? Saving the world is a sweet idea. I’ve written about how joy could save the world, so why not love? Yet to think we can save an entire planet is also absurd, at least if by saving we mean that one day there will be peace and cooperation everywhere, respect, and generosity, and a deep, abiding kindness. Such values exist in pockets in every country and in every village, but so does animosity. All these and more are part…
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With Prayer, What Matters Is that We Start
Every once in a while, I meet with a patient who wants to know how to pray. The short answer is that there is no right way. You can find instructions, of course, but you can also find instructions that defy those instructions, so in the end, you just have to do what feels best to you. That isn't where I start with people, though. First, I have to figure out why they're asking the question.
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Nothing Is Personal and the Book of Job
Staring with Job Job took nothing personally. You know Job. He was the “blameless and upright” man from the Hebrew Bible “who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). Blessed with a fine home, ten children, many servants, and thousands of sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys, he was one of God’s favorites. Then one day, God bragged to Satan about how much Job feared and honored Him. “There is no one like him on the earth,” said the deity, “a blameless and upright man” (Job 1:8). Satan wondered if this was really true. “Does Job fear God for nothing?” he asked. “You have blessed the work of his…
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Choice, Transformation, and Love
The Nature of Reality Each January, as the year turns, we move into something new. We cross a threshold. We transition from memory to hope. The future spreads out before us, and possibilities abound. Many of us eagerly plan our resolutions, hoping they will transform turn us into the person we always wanted to be. Unfortunately, our plans rarely play out the way we expect them to. According to my elder son, this is because we have less control over our life than we like to think. For him, existence is an intricate interplay of events, occasions, thoughts, and experiences that weave and develop in ways beyond our comprehension. As…
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Reconciliation: A Spiritual Resolution
General Resolutions As New Year’s Eve approaches, resolutions are on many people’s minds. According to a 2015 Nielsen study, the most popular New Year’s resolutions are staying fit and losing weight. Close seconds are “enjoying life to the fullest” and saving money. Then comes spending more time with friends and family and getting organized. These changes are great ways to make ourselves feel better by enlivening us physically and mentally, helping us feel secure in the world; and increasing our productivity. Spending time with loved ones is always good, assuming those relationships are healthy and supportive or are at least open to improvement. Of course, we don’t need to wait…
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Accepting Death
The Monarch and the Milkweed Adult monarch butterflies spend the spring and summer in the United States and Canada. There they sip nectar from wildflowers and search for milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. The glycoside toxins in the plants’ leaves, to which the monarchs are immune, collect in the body of their larvae, remaining in their fat and muscle for their entire life cycle. Research is mixed on how much protection the poison actually provides the insects. Does the bright orange of their cloak, veined by black and speckled with white dots, warn potential predators of their nasty taste, or is that a coincidence? Is the butterfly’s…
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Daylight Saving Time and Eternity
Daylight Savings Time Ends In most of the United States, in many parts of Europe, and in a few countries scattered throughout the rest of the world, Daylight Saving time has already ended or will end soon. It being fall, we turn the clocks backward and gain an hour, which is something to savor. Who doesn’t appreciate more time to sleep or party or meditate? If spring eventually brings Daylight Saving time around again, snatching that hour from us, we don’t have to think about that right now. Nonetheless, I’m not thrilled about this time change. I enjoy the dark mornings that encourage me to sleep in, and I love…
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Sex, Money, and Happiness
Money Isn’t Everything, But It Helps Before I read about the crow, I thought I would make a simple statement about the connection between sex, money, and happiness. It seemed reasonable to open this column with the platitude: if we seek happiness in that which is impermanent, we will end up unhappy, for that is what I have to say. Yet the crow shifted my understanding a little bit. For instance, although a happiness that depends on human relationships or financial security is precarious, for those of us living in the United States during the early part of the twenty-first century, the sentiment ignores certain realities of living in a…
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All Kinds of Freedom
The Freedom of Innocence Freedom comes in many forms. For instance, there is a freedom in the innocence of a child. My one-year-old grandson has started laughing. Watching the cats play, he laughs. Noticing the adults in his life move or clap or tap their foot, he laughs. Gazing at the sky, the trees, the air itself, he laughs. When when he laughs, we laugh, too. He has discovered a new game. How joyful is this innocent freedom he radiates. He knows nothing of floods, supreme court confirmation hearings, sexual abuse, war, murder, lead in drinking water, poverty, poachers, hunger, illness, or plague. All he knows is what he sees, hears,…