Articles about Wisdom
I’m moved to write a reflection this year, 2022, on each day of Advent, a season that ends on Christmas Eve. Two phrases are on my mind: “the hush of waiting” and “hope for finding beauty in the dark.” When my first husband, Jim, died in a car wreck on Christmas Eve in 1999, I…
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“I’ve got a book manuscript hidden in my drawer,” my client said, in an offhand manner. She sat in her office halfway around the world and in a little box on the Zoom screen. She spoke fast. I think she half hoped I wouldn’t catch her words. “Send it to me,” I said. “I’d love…
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The university classroom was too warm, it smelled of books, bodies, and old heat registers. My professor of counselor education, Peggy, and I, sat across from each other in wood and metal chairs. I had volunteered to work with her in a “fishbowl” – to be a pretend “client” while she demonstrated how counseling works.…
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“Ask my family to say the rosary for me, Lin, please,” Grandpa Jim said. My father-in-law’s voice, warmed by a slight Kentucky drawl, a remnant of his birthplace, was fresh in my ear. But his lips had not moved. He lay in a coma, about to die. But I’m only an in-law, I thought, it’s…
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“When you approach the confessional, know this… I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy.” – St. Faustina, Polish Mystic “Confession is an act of love.”– Albert Camus I was a juicy female sapling, a maiden witch,…
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As a young woman, I checked my wild creative nature and sexuality to preserve my cherry. Later, I discovered that the hymen was but a crescent flap of embryonic tissue; a remnant that men and religion imbued with high moral meaning. I had two nicknames in high school: “Miss Advent” and “Sassy.” Translation: irreverent and…
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“Hey, Sandy-Beach-Del, you must be po-or. Your bookbag is, like, trashed, man.” The spin on my last name, Sandel, was typical for the boy, a fellow sixth-grader. My bookbag was a sorry sight, frayed and falling apart. Schoolbags back then didn’t have fancy shoulder straps and lots of zippered pockets. They were satchels, carried by…
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“There is a line of varicose veins on both your legs, mid-thigh,” the woman doctor said, her tone matter of fact. My feet were clutched in the frigid steel stirrups on the gynecologist’s table. My backside felt saran-wrapped against fake leather. Bright white fluorescent lights did not warm the space between my spread legs. Neither…
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“Mama, I can’t breathe,” she said. Ancient and black, ankles spilled over battered sneakers, she raised her arms to the mystery.
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