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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

My junior year in college I learned that fear is not the wisest response to danger. The lesson began with an obscene phone call from a young man who called me by name. At first I was so surprised it took me a minute to hang up. A week later he called again. He said [...]