I was teaching a class of older teenagers at an Oklahoma youth camp named Falls Creek. In a class of about fifty, one person captured my attention without saying a word and I could not get her off my mind. She sat in the middle of the back row with ‘’deer in the headlights” eyes full of fear and pain. I never got a chance to speak to her after class, but I kept seeing her eyes in my mind. What kinds of fears were haunting her life? What threats did she face?
Read MoreI have spent over sixty-five years maintaining a fairly heavy load of what some call counseling and I call companioning people. This has been my greatest joy and most significant part of my life. Nothing else comes close. Someone said to me “you must really love people doing all of your counseling and never charging anyone a fee.” I said, “I do love them, but I am also nosey, and I love to hear the stories.” Actually, most of my education about life and people has come from the stories they tell. Now I want to share this joy with others.
Read MoreThose words from the Battle Hymn of The Republic appeared to a very divided nation in1861 the year before the Civil War. President Lincoln had warned that a nation divided against itself could not stand but from the words of the song it seems that no one was willing to do anything about the divided nation except wait for God to heal the problem. The result was the bloodiest war in our history with the grapes of wrath still untouched.
Once again, we have become a nation divided and in danger of imploding. Fear, hate, anger, greed, and lust for power has divided us into warring tribes seeking to destroy each other. Once again, we seem to be content with complaining, arguing and trying to figure out who else to blame besides ourselves while waiting for some other outside source to heal our nation.
Read MoreI have carried a couple of buckets with me for the last twenty years. They are my props when I am talking about what helps people with their grief. I ask someone to hold one of the buckets and tell them to imagine they have just lost a loved one. The bucket represents their feelings and I asked them to express what feelings they think would be in their bucket. I ask the audience to join in and words like pain, fear, grief, loneliness, empty, anger, guilt and sometimes relief. I then ask what thoughts
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