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Category Archives: Psychology
The Silence Is Not Empty (Slice of Infinity)
[Jill Carattini writes about silence in Holy Week, focusing on Holy Saturday. I took James Loder, whom she references, for a psychology class at Princeton.] The Silence Is Not Empty Gordon Hempton is of the opinion that you can count … Continue reading
Posted in Church, Jesus, Psychology, Spiritual Practices
Tagged Holy Saturday, James Loder, Jill Carattini, Silence
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Woman In the Woods
A therapist we know lives with her husband in the woods east of Ann Arbor. I drive up to her home from time to time when a thought weighs on my heart. My wife suggested I go see her. There … Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Psychology
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Grief Shatters
Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry, by Melissa M. Kelley, professor at Boston College School of Theology. Kelley has written a beautiful and well researched study on the experience of grief. Rather than see grief as a linear … Continue reading
Grief Mosaic
Melissa M. Kelley, a professor at Boston College School of Theology, believes that traditional psychoanalytic understandings of grief, though helpful, only yield a one-dimensional view of how people really grieve. In her book on Grief, she suggests a mosaic as … Continue reading
Why Married People Need Friends
Because they can’t expect their spouse to be their sole support. When I first got married I had a vision of a union of two people who realized that they needed nothing in the world but each other. As I’ve … Continue reading
Introverts Make Better Leaders
So says Susan Cain: Another advantage sitters [introverts prone to sit and observe] bring to leadership is a willingness to listen to and implement other people’s ideas. A groundbreaking study led by the Wharton management professor Adam Grant, to be … Continue reading
When I Thought of Suicide
It was the winter of 1994, a January or February night. I was chaplain on-call at Abington Memorial Hospital, north of center city Philadelphia. I was in a chaplaincy training program called Clinical Pastoral Education. I had a bad relationship … Continue reading
Caroline Stephen On Mystics
Mystics are naturally independent, not only of ecclesiastical authority, but of each other. This is necessarily implied in the very idea of first-hand reception of light. While it must always constitute a strong bond of sympathy between those who recognize … Continue reading
Leader as Motivator, Manager or Mystic
Leaders vary in ability and personality. Even with their differences, though, certain traits come together a recognizable kind of leader. I see at least three kinds: leader as motivator, manager or mystic. Leader as motivator. This is the doer, the … Continue reading
When You Are Criticized
When criticized, our instinct is to defend, explain or justify ourselves, which Russell Bishop combines to form the word dexify. I have learned that when I feel the need to dexify myself, some part of me is almost always of … Continue reading
Posted in Psychology
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Loss and Potential Loss
I brought communion to two old women who live in this 12 story building. One lost her eyesight from macular degeneration, and the other her right leg from diabetes. Each lives alone in a spare apartment with off-white walls, adding … Continue reading
Posted in Emotions, Psychology
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Suicide and Stoicism
Perla Cruz cries at a funeral mass for Rigoberto Ruelas, an elementary teacher. He ranked below average in a teacher rating system, and after a newspaper published his score, he went into the woods and took his own life. Students … Continue reading
Non-Directive Pastor
Tim Stafford offers advice on choosing a therapist. One of the least asked questions, he says, is whether the person is directive or non-directive. Will they offer advice and tell you what to do, or will they only listen and … Continue reading
Driver, Analytic, Relator, Expressive
Our nine-member church staff took part in a team building exercise last week. Among other things, we took the DARE test together and compared results. DARE is a psychological inventory that measures personality in four categories: the Driver the Analytic … Continue reading
My Chief Fear
“What do you think she’s afraid of?” We were sitting at Mario’s Mexican Restaurant discussing a mutual acquaintance. It took time and reflection to answer the question. I looked at the person’s behavior and then identified the fear that prompts … Continue reading
Embarrassed to be Myself
Divine love is incessantly restless until it turns all woundedness into strength, all deformity into beauty, all embarrassment into laughter. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes I am embarrassed of myself, embarrassed to be myself. It has always been so with … Continue reading
