Letting Go
Death is not a tidy process. I've answered too many 3 am pages from the hospital to know that death does not honor anyone's schedule. Death can arrive under the stark glare of fluorescent lighting and the faint whiff of…
This year, I need Advent in my life
Santa and Mrs. Claus showed up at Chick-fil-A two days after Thanksgiving, looking totally relaxed. Perhaps all their holiday cookies are made and in the freezer; presents are wrapped and ready to go. Now their only job is to greet…
Trust in the slow work of God
If sales of self-help books are any indication, we are a people seeking transformation. We want to be thinner, richer, cook like a five star chef and have only kids and loved ones like the ones we read about in…
Praying Our Goodbyes
Years ago, when I worked at Abbott as a chaplain, I was paged into the hospital in the middle of an icy night. Abbott didn’t generally page in chaplains unless a patient was close to death, and this patient had…
Listen with the ear of your heart
As Steve Hartman of CBS News reported the story in one of his “On the Road” segments, it was a routine 911 call: Melvyn Amrine had gone out for a walk, and after 40 minutes, he hadn’t returned. Doris, his…
Plan B: Gratitude from the Ashes
Tom’s Burned Down Café is a “no shirt, no shoes, no problem” kind of place. The bar is a ramshackle assortment of tarps and tents with cheap beer in a funky/grunge environment and signs that read “We cheat the other…
Charting a Course through Dementia’s Fog
One of my grandmothers lived to 103, politically active to the end. My other grandmother died at 98, able to bake a pie from scratch until her last years. So when my mom showed signs of dementia at 80, we…
