Several years ago I read a book called The Path: Writing Your Mission Statement for Work and For Life. Author Laurie Beth Jones argues that we will be more likely to fulfill our life’s purpose if we can articulate what it is, so she takes the reader through a series of exercises to help draft a mission statement for life. Though I was somewhat skeptical of this approach when I did it, I have found that it has had a lasting impact. Last night I suddenly realized that I’m living my mission statement in ways I hadn’t realized before.It feels corny putting it in print, but the purpose I drafted when I was pregnant with Luke was to “help people to trust, God, themselves, and [...]

Surrender is one of those words with completely different connotations depending on the context. It can imply a spiritual letting go, floating in life’s stream with New Age music playing in the background. But surrender can also imply giving up, waving the white flag, often at gun point. I’ve been surrendering a lot lately, hoping it’s the spiritual kind of giving up, not the lazy or cowardly kind.My biggest summer surrender has been time to write. I haven't even blogged in weeks. There have been past summers when the demands of two children out of school have frustrated me to the point of extreme crankiness. I’ve looked forward to school starting with manic desperation, rushing to my computer at the first opportunity. Not this summer. [...]

I know, Quakers have a long history of rejecting the popular culture. It’s probably an embarrassment to Quaker bloggers everywhere that I’m bringing up the most hyped literary event of living memory. But I can’t help it. I want to know how the Harry Potter series is going to end. My faith in J.K. Rowling is at stake.A few posts ago I got some comments about human sinfulness. As I said then, I do believe all people have the propensity for evil in them, but they also have the propensity for good. I suspect Rowling shares this belief. One of the things that I like about the Harry Potter books is that our duality is shown. Harry, Ron and Hermione can be pretty nasty to [...]

The other day I was reading Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism. He argues that optimism can be learned, and that it helps us to weather disappointments, illness, and can even prevent depression and anxiety. This doesn’t mean we should just repeat baseless affirmations to ourselves, however. He says true optimism is shown in how we interpret disappointing or difficult events. Do we blame ourselves, citing something unchangeable like luck or our lack of talent? Or do we identify factors that we could affect in the future? For example, instead of saying, “I failed the test because I’m stupid, or because the teacher is unfair,” an optimist will say, “I failed the test because I didn’t study. Last time when I studied I did well, so [...]

Last night my husband Tom and I went out to dinner. At some point he asked, “Do you ever wonder, ‘How did I get here?’” Although I hadn’t asked the question quite that way, I had been thinking about the circuitous route my life has taken. Two weeks ago we went on vacation with a dear college friend whom I met almost twenty-seven years ago on a bike trip. Then last week I was writing about my stint as a canvasser, which I was startled to realize began eighteen years ago. I found that job because a trip to the mountains with a high school friend hit bad weather, and we ended up inside a lodge reading the newspaper classifieds. I met my husband because [...]

One day last week I woke up to two e-mails: one saying there was a new comment on my post “Fearless,” the other a message from someone who found me through my web site. Although one was long and thoughtful and the other short and cryptic, both seemed to assume a more pessimistic view of human nature than my own. It made me wonder how the different concepts we hold about human nature affect the way we live in the world.The long message was from a man named David who described himself as a father, Christian, and US Marine, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He started off empathizing with some of my concerns about US foreign policy. He then said this: Nevertheless, I [...]

June is a time of transitions, which means blogging has slipped a bit. This is the last week of school, and thus my last week of full-time writing for awhile. We’re entering baseball playoffs, which means we can’t quite predict how many more games we’ll be having, or when, and my Quaker meeting is trying to sort out several big issues before we break business meetings for the summer. Tom and I are remodeling our kitchen, and it is the end of the Sopranos, which doesn’t matter to me since I don’t get cable, but is apparently a big deal to some given how much of yesterday’s paper was devoted to the topic.It’s a transition time in other ways as well. Last week I finally [...]

MotherTalk is offering another Blog Bonanza, which means they invite all their blogger friends to write about a particular topic on a particular day. Today’s topic was inspired by the new book Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Caring, Ethical Kids Without Religion. Of course, I couldn’t pass this one up.My husband says religion is for adults, although I have to point out that he was a Roman Catholic priest for sixteen years and had to give sermons with squirmy children in the pews. Still, he may have a point. I haven’t figured out how to explain complex ideas to my kids without having them come out as some sort of caricature. For example, I recall giving one of my periodic speeches designed to counter the [...]

I haven’t been writing here much, mostly because I’ve been immersed in working on my book, trying to finish the new version of Chapter Two before school lets out. The only problem is that on Wednesday I realized that Chapter Two should really be Chapter Three and a piece of what was Chapter Three should become Chapter One. The rest of Chapter Three should become Chapter Four, etc. You can see how a person could forget to blog.With all the ideas of the book swirling around my head, it seems like a good time to pull together some thoughts on what I’m learning so far, especially from the interviews I’ve been doing. So here are some observations:1. People are amazing. What we go through is [...]

The end of the school year is in sight, and I haven’t finished arranging summer camp, let alone the writing work I planned to do this spring. It’s going well, just not at lightning speed, so I’ve been making special efforts to stay focused. Of course, life is getting in the way a bit, which I guess is good because it gives me something to write about.A few weeks ago, when one of these “distractions” came along, a wise writer friend of mine said, “Whenever something like that happens, try to see how it is really is helping the book, like maybe it is something you need to write about.” That afternoon someone send me an article they had written and asked for my feedback. [...]