In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes the way habits change. You don’t really break a habit, according to Duhigg. You just replace it with something else. And if you want to replace a bad habit with a good one, you have to identify the cue, the response, and the reward associated with […]
Advent Reflections: How Love Transforms Us
Love. Peace. Hope. Joy. We will see these words a lot in the next four weeks—in scrawling fonts, in red green, silver, and gold, adorning Christmas cards and advertisements and invitations. Because they are commonplace, and because they are tossed into the mix of beaming family photos and lists of items we want at […]
Five Books that Have Challenged Me about Race and Justice
I have been concerned about racial injustice and inequality in our nation for nearly forty years now. I grew up in a small town in eastern North Carolina. Growing up, the gentility of southern culture with its magnolias and manners offered me safety and comfort. And I noticed the discrepancy between my life–my education, […]
Five Books that Have Challenged Me about Race and Justice
I have been concerned about racial injustice and inequality in our nation for nearly forty years now. I grew up in a small town in eastern North Carolina. Growing up, the gentility of southern culture with its magnolias and manners offered me safety and comfort. And I noticed the discrepancy between my life–my education, […]
Thought on the Election of Donald Trump: Trust Your Love Instead of Your Fear
“Trust your love instead of your fear.” I first said those words in a conversation with a woman who had received a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, but they have returned to my mind again and again. I have held on to hope and love for my own child with Down syndrome: when she’s diagnosed […]
When Mary Said “Excuse me, what did you say?!?” to the Angel (Or: Advent Reflections on Hope)
I was reading from the early chapters of Luke as a part of getting ready for Christmas, and I came to the moment when the angel appears to Mary. So the Bible translation I read says that when the angel appears Mary feels “greatly troubled.” Translating that into what I might say inside my […]
