Inner Path

A couple years ago I began a contemplative practice of creating SoulCollage cards. Each small card is a collage of images that represent different parts of who I am. One of my SoulCollage cards is an image of a group of men on a lifeboat looking out onto the night sky watching a ship sinking in the distance. In my mind I imagine the ship to be the Titanic with lots of people left behind, and I am the man on the lifeboat whose hand is outstretched. I painted a heart in that

Just like everyone else I woke on Sunday morning to the horrific news of the shootings in Orlando. I was scheduled that day to talk at church about the effects of trauma on the brain. That morning I got to feel it firsthand. I watched the news with tears dripping onto my face. “How does this keep happening?” I cried. My heart ached for the people whose lives were lost and the family and friends left behind to feel the overwhelming emptiness of that loss. And then there w

In the 1980’s I was a typical teenage mall rat. Every Saturday afternoon my friends and I headed to the mall to hang out. We rarely bought anything, just walked around hoping for some adventure and of course to meet new people. I remember at times being in a place where I had to make a decision about which direction to go—down the escalator, straight ahead, to the right—and I would feel a tinge of panic. “Which way should I go?” I would question, “ Someone I am supposed to

It happens in a moment. Maybe it’s when you are driving down the street with your windows down listening to your favorite song or when you are watching a child you love laugh and play or when you dip your toes into the cool water of a running creek or when you are looking into someone’s eyes and really feel present with that person. It’s that moment when you realize after all the seeking and the searching and the wondering, you are here, that moment when you realize you are