“Irreverence!” he declared as he slammed his palm onto the wooden pulpit. A brittle silence briefly hung in the sanctuary. The congregants present continued to stare blankly at the preacher, waiting for his next line. It came quickly. “Anxiety is ultimately irreverence to God.” Elise’s ears (name changed) rang as she looked at her pastor,...
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It is hard to talk about anxiety in a helpful way. At best, I have a shallow, half-understanding of anxiety. I am not a psychologist, and I no longer have the absolute confidence of a person who has only known one story of anxiety up close. A flat, simple story of anxiety is easy to...
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I recently spent a week staying with some of my dearest friends. Their kids are ages five, seven, nine, and 12, and man, do they know how to get under one another’s skin. They know just the thing to say, just the tone to use, and just the face to make to send another sibling...
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As vaccination rates pick up, even in the face of the quick rise of various COVID variants, we are at a period where some countries are having to lock down while others are opening up. In my own country, the United States, various states have experienced harsher or more mild waves of disease, and some...
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This past holiday season, I had the joy of performing one of life’s most satisfying but irritating tasks: stringing up Christmas lights. The frustration begins right off the bat with figuring out how to untangle them. Then, you need to make sure they all work (because there is always that one broken bulb that ruins the...
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Sometimes, humans can be stubborn. Most times, humans will be stubborn. I have always had to fight the temptation of pride. When I was younger, I would be under the impression that my way of doing something was the best way of doing something. However, when my dad corrected me, or tried to tell me...
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