Reflections

  ~ forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it (Mark Twain) When it comes to loss or terminal illness, we say that acceptance happens gradually, in  stages  known as "grief". The stages we go through, however, are not just steps we simply go down. They are an uphill battle to let go of something cherished, a process far more arduous than what is implied in the somewhat placid emotion "grief" which, true to its etymologcal orgin ( gravitas ), is thick with a sorrow evoking images of weeping and wailing clothed in the heavy black garments of wet renunciation. Loss, on the other hand, triggers anything but a passive response from the loser. It sparks an agitated wrestling against reality, a complex process that is totally counter-intuitive to human agency culminating in the bittersweet acquiescence to an undesired fate. That is letting go. The first stage is  denial : No. This is not happening and I will have nothing of it! The s...

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness;  and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33) Lately I've had a few hopelesss conversations with frustrated friends who are struggling to find their way out of addiction. One of them recently threw his hands up to the heavens and begged for mercy over his alcoholism, shrugging with tears in his eyes, "I am waiting on Him." While it looked like an act of surrender, and I felt sorry for him, I recognized this kind of waiting as too passive to be called seeking. I have seen him walking to the corner store for beer with more enthusiasm. I know how he feels. When I quit smoking 15 years ago, I had no idea I was quitting an addiction. I thought I loved cigarettes; and that made it very hard not to pick one up. The first days were almost impossible and, if it weren't for my 6 year-old daughter urging me to soldier on, I might have thrown in the towel on day 2. I kept going for her sake, not wanting to...

And I will restore to them the years that the locust has eaten  (Joel 2:25)  I write this as a Christian disappointed that the scriptures supporting my faith do not explicitly encourage the most important act of restoration I can think of. And that is saying sorry. Many of my brothers and sisters, when asked about scriptural support for apologizing, will cite passages about forgiveness, restitution, redempton or atonement but none of these mention saying sorry to the people we have harmed. The scriptures (both old and new) invite humility, contrition and repentance in various gestures of sacrifice and reconciliation. But these are   directed toward God rather than toward human beings. Perhaps that is why religious people will bypass an apology and go straight to requesting forgiveness. They seek absolution for themselves but not necessarily the restoration of those against whom they've sinned. Jesus was clear about placing the love for another right up there with the firs...

~ Wherefore all these things are but the names which mortals have given, believing them, to be true (Parmenides; On Nature) As a psychotherapist, I regret that my profession has drifted from its original vocation as a study of the soul/mind ( psyche ) to become an "evidence-based" discipline founded on scientific knowledge ( episteme ) of the mind/brain.  We cannot gain insight into the mind using science. Though we may be able to see or measure behavioural or cognitive phenomena and infer correlations with the brain, we cannot present these as "evidence" of what goes on inside the mind. The mind remains invisible to itself, its inner workings elusive. The mind is real in a way that is very different from the empirical data we may collect trying to understand it. It has a metaphysical reality that cannot be grasped by verifiable facts, a reality that is unfortunately dismissed by contemporary psychology for lack of evidence. That is what I regret. When science is th...

  ~ we admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable  (Step One, Twelve Steps) There is a turning point in the life of every person which involves an admission of powerlessness. After all, nobody escapes the human experience without loss of power somewhere along the way. We lose youth, we lose people, sometimes we lose our hopes and dreams and, eventually, we lose life itself. We tend to mask this painful reality and pretend to be masters of our own destiny. This is called denial, and it is fed by the need to feel in control, by the ego. The stronger our ego is, the more denial we need.  The most perillous and pathetic exhibition of this is addiction. Addicts deny powerlessness over an impulse even when it threatens to consume them and anything else that gets in the way. Unchecked, denial of addiction almost always ends in jail, institution or death. What is one to do? Admit defeat. In the famous story of David and Bathsheba, David had everyt...

~What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart;  Matthew 15:18 Today is the first day of Lent, which comes form the Old Dutch, lentin , meaning spring season . Traditionally, Christians honor this day with prayer and fasting, marking their foreheads with ashes in the shape of a cross to remember Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the desert.  This year, the first day of Lent also falls on the first day of the month of adar in the Hebrew calendar. According to Jewish custom, it was on this day that the plague of darkness covered Egypt before the great Exodus toward the Promised Land. In six weeks, Jews will observe Passover and Christians Easter, a celebration of passing from darkness into light and experiencing the magnificent rebirth of life known as Spring.  Lent is a time of temptation resisted, a wilderness experience or  midbar... If we focus on   deprivation, it can seem  long*  with the days getting longer but not fast enough. But i...