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...

Proof:  Some people gonna call you up Tell you something that you already know Proof:  Sane people go crazy on you Say ''No man, that was not t he deal we made I got to, I got to go'' Faith:  Faith is an island in the setting sun But proof, yes p roof is the bottom line for everyone --Paul Simon, "Proof," from Rhythm of the Saints , 1990. I wonder: when Donald Trump looks in the mirror, does he tell himself the same words he's used on audiences longing for someone, something, anything they can rely on to improve their lives: "Believe me!" And when he sees that huckster expression on his face, hears those words bouncing back off the glass, does he, in fact, believe whatever thoughts are bouncing around under his expensive meta-combover? Judging from the fallout of Saturday's Trumped-up "Obama wiretapped me" tweets, the answer to that rhetorical question is a very solid "yes." Here's White House spok...

It's a tired old joke. It's also true. It's a truth I avoided until I was 24: I needed help. I was not coping with adult life, especially post-college adult life, whether as a grad student, a struggling first-year (and, as a result of that struggle, almost only year) teacher, then a seminarian. Each year, the loneliness and depression deepened, until finally I walked into the campus mental health center at SMU and was assigned a therapist. He helped me get over my difficulties with dating (primarily that I didn't know how to do it). Once I'd been on a few dates, and gotten serious, I proposed to my first real girlfriend, and felt so good that I pronounced myself cured. Five years later, my marriage and career in ministry were falling apart, and I finally went back to therapy. This time I stuck with it: there were interruptions, but it was nineteen years before I decided I'd really done all the therapy I needed. All told, between 1985 and 2010, I...