Silence as Listening As a chaplain, I listen. This sounds easy, but listening is complex. To listen, we must be present, maintain our focus, and hold our heart open so we don’t get lost in judgment. Typically, it helps to insert comments, such as paraphrasing what you hear or asking for clarification. Yet sometimes, simply paying attention can make all the difference. The most extreme example of this kind of silent listening occurred when I met with a patient for an hour, saying nothing other than, “So what’s going on?” at the beginning, and “You’re welcome,” at the end. The man told me about his childhood, about a grievance with his…
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Holding Ourselves Accountable and the Importance of Feelings
Managing Our Feelings The details are fuzzy. I think we were at some kind of party, maybe a birthday for one of my son’s friends. We mothers were hanging out with the kids, chatting, watching them play. Near me stood a woman I didn’t know well. Her boy was perhaps seven years old. I have no memory of what the child did or said. Probably, I hadn’t noticed. Whatever it was, it triggered in his mother an impressive outrage. Grabbing her son by the arm, she turned to me and said, “We have to leave. He’s upset me so much, I’m just too angry to enjoy myself any longer.” Her…
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Kindness and “Projective Disgust”
Kindness in Folk Tales A common theme in folk tales is the younger brother or sister who is kind to the needy fish, or old woman, or bird and thus is rewarded, while the selfish older brother or sister is punished for being mean. The moral of such stories is that kindness pays. Today, you would think that hardly anyone had read those old stories. When I told my husband I was writing a column about kindness, he said, “You should call it, ‘Kindness is Dead.’” He was referring, of course, to the loud and angry voices of extremists so prevalent in the United States and around the world. These…
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Choosing the Good Way
To Travel the Good Way If ever we needed to walk the “good way” that the prophet Jeremiah promoted, that time is now. Corruption has fragmented our government and our courtrooms. Violence and intolerance destroy communities. Something must change. But what is the good way, and how do we walk it? We know good way lies along the ancient paths, for the prophet tells us so: Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls (Jer 6:16). So the good way is found along the ancient paths, but…
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Finding Balance: A Treatise on the Power of Music
On Balance and Its Relationship to Acceptance and Anger Before we knew we would cancel this Sunday’s sharing circle, we chose a theme of balance. In particular, we wondered how to balance our need for peace of mind, found generally by accepting that which exists, with our need to change and grow and resist, which requires discontentment, even anger. We’ll revisit the topic in September, exploring how acceptance and anger play out in our personal and political lives. Today, we will focus on the concept of balance. A meaningful life requires balance. When we relentlessly pursue pleasure, we end up miserable, damaging relationships, losing jobs, and disconnecting from ourselves. On…
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Embracing Change
Our Dream of Paradise Idyllic worlds cannot sustain themselves. Though we long for them, and tell stories of Eden and of Heaven, no matter what myths we create, paradise is as impermanent as the wind. Ultimately, this is a good thing. In paradise there might be no struggle, or confusion, or pain, when we are perfect, we cannot change or grow. I suppose one perfect thing could transform into another perfect thing, but why? What drives us to evolve if not dissatisfaction and desire? That’s why Adam and Eve had to leave the garden. If they never experienced discomfort, they would have remained infantile forever. Like the story of Eden,…
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Chance, Randomness, and the Fault in Our Stars
The Elusive Nature of Randomness Our universe is ruled by randomness. Not that we generally acknowledge that. Most of us believe in a powerful and purposeful divine being who plans events, guides our lives, and has a mission for each of us. It’s hard for us to understand the world any other way, for our minds see patterns everywhere. We naturally create meaning out of chaos. As Leonard Mlodinow explains in his book, The Drunkard’s Walk, randomness and chance are common, yet we still imagine we can predict the future and control events that cannot be controlled. We downplay the way fortune – or misfortune – impacts our lives. [1]…
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Hagar and the Power of Naming
The Power of Naming When he enlisted in the army toward the end of World War II, my father changed his name. A Jewish refugee from Germany, he was traumatized by and ashamed of his heritage, so perhaps that had something to do with his rejection of his birth name, yet it was also common practice back then for immigrant soldiers to change their foreign names to English ones. In any event, Karl Heinz Stiebel become Charles Harry Stevens. Did this matter? Changing his name made it easier for him to pass as “white,” which he did. At one point, though he considered himself an atheist, he attended a Methodist…
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Poetry, Gardening, and “the Pulsing in the Universe”
The Pulsing in the Universe The poet Stanley Kunitz said that if one listens in the night, beneath the rumble of traffic and wind and animals, one can hear the “pulsing in the universe.” [1] What is this pulsing? Is it something more true than what we perceive during the bustle of our day? What can it tell us? How do we learn to hear it? Why should we bother? Along with being a poet, Kunitz was a gardener. For nearly all of his one hundred years on Earth, he touched and tended and shaped and loved the soil and the plants that grew there. Along with tending gardens, he…
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Fathers and Our Values
The Importance of Fathers Fathers are important. Not only must they help bring children into the world, but how they interact with their children appears to have much to do with how those children feel about themselves, how they behave in the world, and how successful they are at life. I say “appears,” because fathers are only one influence in a child’s life. We are also formed by our genes, other family members, media, school, friends, religious communities, and more. Nonetheless, studies do show benefits from having a father in the house, especially one who is supportive, nurturing, and fair. Mothers offer much that fathers do, but mothers and fathers…