After my initial shock and disgust, I reflected upon and wrestled with these questions as continuing revelations of sexual misconduct by powerful and influential men made the headlines: How might our relationships be different if sex was revered as sacred? …if the body of our partner was cherished and treated with reverence? …if the raw […]
Healing
Angels Among Us ~~ Shirley
We never know when we make a small gesture how it can change a person’s life. Shirley Santo smiled at me from the choir loft at church. She couldn’t have known that her smile meant the world to me. I was almost eight years old and painfully shy. For three years I had been holding […]
Another Welcome Gift of Grace
In my last blog post, I wrote: “For many years as an adult, I hid. I cut myself off from old friends who would have wanted to know what was going on. I didn’t want to tell them.” When our family moved from Middletown to Kettering, OH in the early 80s, we left behind a […]
Unexpected and Continuing Gifts of Grace
People often ask memoirists why we write the story of our life. Writing is for me a spiritual practice — an exploration of the deepest terrain of my soul. I felt compelled to write my story. In the beginning stages, I couldn’t have told you why. In my studies on the art of writing memoir, I […]
Deciding to Change
This post was originally written on September 4. It is a bit dated. I’m late in posting it because when I returned from my trip to the MDF conference in San Francisco (September 7-10), my experience there was more pressing. Then I had computer problems and my September 11 post was finally able to be […]
Strength in Weakness
“…for when I am weak, then I am strong.” ~II Cor. 10b Due to website problems preventing subscribers from receiving posts, this is a re-post of my September 11 post. The most important instruction given to those writing a memoir is to be honest about our shortcomings and to be generous in describing others so as […]
