Family dynamics For many people, the greatest influence on their lives has been their families for good or for ill. Families make us or break us. We usually don’t get to choose our families, but sometimes we do. In fact, we may reject our birth family for a collection of…

when it tells you something is wrong. Our minds can protect us. We have the ability that spiders do to protect us from danger if we pay attention. Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt like something was off kilter with the situation or with the people…

What have you left unfinished? — I recall as a teenager seeing a framed cross-stitch sampler on my grandmother’s bedroom wall. The name on the sampler was Myra Edna Thompson. It was dated June 16, 1880. Edna was my grandmother’s older sister. The sampler is incomplete. This fact has always intrigued me. Why was it unfinished…

What’s so bad about enjoying oneself? No one calls fun, happiness, joy, glee, or delight sinful, but pleasure gets a bad rap and is often associated with sinfulness. In the Bible, pleasure is associated with excess or perverseness. According to an article on Christian.net, “The seven deadly sins are considered…

The unknown and the unexplainable In this world of facts, and data, and science, and knowable proofs, we need the unknown. We need ghosts and aliens, and the unexplainable. …

Why To Do Lists Are Detrimental to My Mental Health On Monday, I wrote out a to do list with ten items on it. All are important. Some are urgent. Now, two days later, and I have only been able to mark one item off my list. Just looking at…

Please harken to this message — My email is overflowing with emails from Democratic campaigns shouting that the sky is falling and if I don’t send you $7 right now, you will lose their election. You aren’t even asking me to vote for you. You are just asking me to send you money. I have a message for you and your campaign managers: This approach isn’t…

It’s still here. — “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner Faulkner was onto something important when he made that statement. Of course, his fiction was about the American South and how its past affected the South in his lifetime, in the lives of his characters, and the lives of…

Sages across the ages — Most people don’t want advice, but that has never stopped philosophers and writers or parents or grandparents or teachers or our friends from giving us advice. More palatable than advice is wisdom. In a number of my articles, I have shared the wisdom of writers, philosophers, and supposed authorities from…