What the Silence Is for

A number of years ago I was walking with friends through Circle Center Mall downtown. We’d just listened to our kids play a Christmas jazz concert in the Artsgarden—that beautiful glassed dome that spans Washington and Illinois streets in downtown Indianapolis. As we walked back through the mall toward the parking garage, we passed the […]

Each New Day

Doesn’t it feel good to get a really good night’s sleep? You know, the kind of sleep where we wake up feeling warm, rested, and ready for a new day? Researchers have spent decades studying sleep and they can tell us all kinds of things about it—from the speed of our brain waves during different […]

Simple Things

How many simple, wonderful things have you already enjoyed in your day today? Maybe you woke up warm, snuggled under layers of soft blankets. Perhaps you enjoyed a cup or two of freshly brewed coffee, probably thankful for the aroma long before you took that first sip. You may have shared a few sweet quiet […]

Quaker Characters

In my work at hospice, I have a remarkable opportunity to see God’s light shining through so many different lives in so many unique and beautiful ways. Last year I spent time with a woman who had been born in Poland, and as young teen, she was kidnapped by the Nazis during World War II, […]

Hall of Mirrors

When you were young, did you ever go through a carnival fun house? You know–the place with all the trick mirrors that made your reflection super tall and thin or really short and round, or perhaps give you a tiny body and a huge, warbly head? I was never much of a fan of those […]

One Love, One World

“We’re all friends here.” How might that idea, that statement, that energy change the world around us right now? What if people elected to our government could say that—“We are all friends here”—in the White House, in the halls of Congress, in press conferences, on airplanes? What if leaders of nations, of denominations, of industries […]

Seeing in the Dark

We are made for light. Sunlight literally triggers a happiness hormone in our brains that helps us stay calm and focused. Researchers now know that certain conditions—like depression and anxiety—get worse when we don’t get enough sunlight. Many of us complain on gray, dreary days in the middle of winter that we feel blue and […]

The Space between the Words