The losses we’ve experienced due to coronavirus are both horribly easy to count — 465,000 dead in the United States alone — and yet invisibly painful. Especially for communities of faith, the relational losses often go unreported. Yet in conversation…
Understanding the trauma and finding hope after the siege of the nation’s Capitol
As I reflect on the violent attack on our nation’s Capitol, words that continually linger in my mind are “trauma” and “hope.” Still, why would I write about the siege of the Capitol when so many have already written eloquently…
Pandemic complicates the grief at Middle Church after fire, but leaders see hope
There’s no good time to lose a church building to fire, but the middle of a global pandemic seems like an especially awful time to members of Middle Collegiate Church in New York. “When you get to the block and…
Carpe Diem: Seize the day before it’s too late
As is my custom, I poured my first cup of coffee and sat down in my favorite chair to check my emails and my friends’ activities on Facebook and Instagram before settling in with the morning news. To my shock,…
In the first year of grief, walk the perimeter
In the counseling setting, I often tell my clients it takes a year to get a sense of the loss we have experienced. I compare it to a person who has purchased a piece of land and walked out the…
COVID took my Mom but did not have the final word
COVID-19 thinks it took another victim tonight, Dec. 14, 2020. There will be a death listed in the Bell County, Texas, newspaper, with the State of Texas, and other databases. For my family and me, that death is not just…
A chaplain’s reflection on tears
We who care for souls, traffic in tears. We covenant with the crying, we wait with those who weep. Sometimes we have the joy of sharing “happy” tears — the joining of two in marriage, a newborn baby has come into…
Are you suffering from Pastor Separation Syndrome?
Julie Schaaf said she immediately identified with the term “pastor separation syndrome” when she first heard it recently. The concept refers to the loneliness, frustration and grief some clergy have endured after months of pandemic-induced physical separation from their congregations….
The thing with feathers
I put up my 4-foot Christmas tree a few days ago. It took about 15 minutes from box to display. I slid one skinny pole into the other, draped two or three boxes of ornaments over the stiff branches and…