There is no great genius without some touch of madness. ~ Seneca The more normal you try to be (or the more like others you try to parrot) the less of you we will see. The move away from genius leads to people Read more…
Answering the why questions in life will rarely be satisfying. The awareness you’ll gain will be invaluable if you choose to use it. We humans judge actions, not intent. Hiding will prevent relationships from developing intimacy. You cannot have intimacy and hide at the same time. “Don’t put your trust Read more…
What makes people valuable? It’s not what they do, but what they contribute to life, others. Mark Walberg, host of the Antiques Road Show on PBS, wrote a great essay on the similarities of antiques and people. He looks at the nature of what makes antiques valuable and parallels that Read more…
I recently ran across The Amish Project (youtube video), where a guy goes “off the grid” for 90 days. He gets rid of his cell phone, social media, computer, and anything else that promises to keep him connected to others. His project shows him that all these technological advances promise to Read more…
While watching a show on the Battle of Franklin last weekend, I was struck by a statement the narrator made about life, death, and story. While describing the Lotz family and house being caught in the middle of the Battle of Franklin, he said that every person dies twice. Once Read more…
The rise of self-promotion and narcissistic endeavors is ever growing. The public sharing of ones life is the modern day equivalent to having access to 500 million pen pals. We have less and less face-to-face interactions with people due to the popularity of twitter, facebook, and texting. And in this Read more…
Over the Christmas break I found a new game on my iPhone called tiny tower. The premise is pretty simple: build your own sky scraper, populate it with people and businesses, rinse and repeat. It’s wildly addictive in that you can spend tons of time in the game earning money Read more…
Lately I’ve been studying and researching on the nature/effect of shame in our lives. There are a number of fantastic resources that have provided a lot of help for me personally and professionally as I consider shame-based systems. One of the systems I’ve been considering lately is the family. One Read more…
Recently there has been quite a stir about the Christian sub-culture around the issue of Rob Bell and his new book Love Wins. I’ve read a few of blog posts, some twitter posts (including a very prominent Author and Pastor who tweeted “farewell Rob Bell”), and some reviews of the Read more…
There are a number of ways that our body and our souls tell us that something is awry and that we’re in need of some help. Too often these symptoms are ignored or passed off as a ‘bad week.’ This is not a comprehensive list, but a few symptoms that Read more…
The world depicted in the movie Wall-E is quickly becoming a reality for us. Amidst towering issues of trash and little to no natural nourishment, we are being directed to take up residence in another world, in space … and I’m not talking about physical trash. The trash of today Read more…
There is no doubt that in revealing the fundamental fragility of the human condition, the disabled person becomes an expression of the tragedy of pain. In this world of ours that approves hedonism as is charmed by ephemeral and deceptive beauty, the difficulties of the disabled are often perceived as Read more…
Two months ago, the Middle-Tennessee area was hit with thunderstorm after thunderstorm after thunderstorm from Friday night through Sunday evening. Some areas accumulated 15+ inches of rain during that time span, which led to significant flooding in many areas. Thankfully our house was not the victim of these fast moving Read more…
To varying degrees, all of us have experienced trauma and loss (often times as a child). Because of these losses, be it physical or emotional, we tend to create internal reactions (these in turn create external reactions) that keep us from feeling the pain of similar losses in the future. Read more…
Recently I’ve been experiencing some consumption fatigue, in large part because I see an estimated 3,000 advertisements on a daily basis (some stat research here). Because of this fatigue, I’ve been contemplating some thoughts about what it might look like to consume less, and create more. The following are a few of Read more…
I’ve organized a group of marriage, family, and grief counselors to offer free counseling to those who have been affected by the flooding here in our city. I’m wanting to make this available to as many people as possible. There are a lot of hurting people that need help once Read more…
No one who is successful got so by enjoying the relaxation and perks of comfort. They took risks, put something ‘on the line’, and did things that they didn’t want to do. Don’t think, act. If you sit around and think about the consequences or perils of a scary or Read more…
“Good psychotherapy isn’t simply recounting what’s happened to you since your last visit, or how you’ve felt in the past week or month. Although that can be a small component of each weekly visit, it should never be the focus. The focus is in helping you better understand your thoughts, Read more…
Skimming the surface in life is more emotionally expensive than actually digging in and being honest of life. The lack of depth in our world feels to be expanding at an unstoppable rate. From information to nutrition, we can satisfy our most basic longings in an instant rarely stopping for Read more…
Too often insight, knowledge, and assumptions act as intermediaries for the lack of experience.