When I pack for a trip, I make a list based on how long I will be away from home. I try to add a day or two to the count, just in case my trip gets extended due to a canceled flight or unforeseen opportunity. I don’t pack planning…

When I detect cultural furor over extremely uncommon occurrences, I smell scapegoating. Abortions beyond the first trimester — the sort the majority of Americans think unacceptable — are exceedingly rare. Transgender female athletes competing in high school and college sports are exceedingly rare. Want to know what’s not rare? Dying…

A circle, with an arrow. Out of all the writing I have done, and all the ideas I’ve proposed, the one that’s garnered me the most positive feedback is the “Condition/Intervention” model. The graphics aren’t exactly high-tech. Draw a circle, and then point an arrow into it, like so:

As one with a personal and lifelong relationship with anxiety and co-dependence, I have given a great deal of thought to the question, “To what extent do people control one another?” Sure, I can give lip-service to the notion that our feelings are our own, and our behavior is our…

My friend and colleague Joyce gets me. How do I know? Here’s the advice she gave me this week: “Can you make FOMO (fear of missing out) your spiritual practice?” I better back up. Remember my ‘blog of two weeks ago, where I wrote about surviving Flu Type A (my…

The genre is called “magical realism,” and at certain moments in my life, it has seemed more realistic than reality. I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, as one does, in college. The novel chronicles seven generations of a family. Some of the events in the book actually…

The community I serve as dean, Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School, moved to mask-optional policies on our campus two weeks ago, with the exceptions of classrooms and chapel. More people are wearing masks everywhere, still, than I might have expected. …

Our family came home early from a spring-break vacation in the Dominican Republic when Covid-19 was declared a pandemic in March, 2020. I don’t regret the decision to return, but it wasn’t an easy one. …

If you want to see me really, and I mean really, stick my foot in my mouth, all you need to do is expect me to stick my foot in my mouth. …