Midlife Meditation

What do these two men have in common? Neither is good at apologizing. All you have to do is repent. It's amazing what repentance can accomplish. Simply words like "I'm sorry," "I was wrong," "I apologize," "How can I make it up to you?" can make all the difference to a wounded or broken relationship. Estrangements can be healed, reconciliations accomplished, friendships restored, marriages renewed, careers salvaged. Provided, that is, you mean it. An false apology, however sincerely delivered, sets the stage for estrangement to become divorce. Apologize and then go back on the apology, and sadness becomes distrust, anger, even hatred. I've experienced this in my own life. Relationships with family members and friends that have been damaged by one or the other of us causing pain, even for what is perceived by the actor to be righteous reasons, merits an apology, even if it's the mediocre "I'm sorry you feel th...

One of the places I've been--though not in the last month... It's been awhile. Thirty days, to be exact. Thirty days ago, I wrote a piece about Hillary Clinton, and why I think her wonkishness is exactly what we need in he Oval Office. Soon after I wrote it, Amy, two of our kids, and I spent a day flying to New Hampshire, where we met up with most of the rest of the Anderson family, and laid our father's ashes to rest in our mother's family plot. Claremont, New Hampshire, was not my father's home town--but then, nowhere else was, either. My father's childhood was divided up among three locations: Shanghai, China; McMinnville, Oregon; and Redlands, California. As an adult, he lived in many other places, finally retiring to McMinnville, where he spent the final quarter century of his life. But the community never really embraced him. Like my grandfather, who also led an itinerant life, Dad asked that he be buried with his wife's family. We honor...