A Visit to the Dentist

I went to a peri­odon­tist to have a tooth removed.  It was clear I was enter­ing a busi­ness. There were mul­ti­ple indi­ca­tions, most­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed via legal forms deny­ing me recourse if the doc­tor screwed up, and sev­er­al oth­er forms focused on the mon­ey I’d owe if insur­ance did­n’t pay. The place was cool and effi­cient.… Con­tin­ue read­ing A Vis­it to the Dentist

The Loneliness of Children

I am fas­ci­nat­ed by the ways in which peo­ple can offer each oth­er sup­port. I include in sup­port expres­sions of care and reas­sur­ance, deep lis­ten­ing and val­i­dat­ing anoth­er’s sub­jec­tive expe­ri­ence, but I also include hard-to-hear feed­back, mean­ing­ful but chal­leng­ing ques­tions, and even silence — if that silence con­veys con­fi­dence in the oth­er per­son­’s capac­i­ty to… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Lone­li­ness of Children

Published
Categorized as Wounds

Season of Belief

Many have writ­ten about the stress­es of the hol­i­days, how the time calls up unruly expec­ta­tions, uncom­fort­able mem­o­ries and unre­solved loss­es. All of that is true, and yet as I write this evening, it also seems to hold an acute irony. This is a sea­son of belief and giv­ing, isn’t it? But the one per­son… Con­tin­ue read­ing Sea­son of Belief

Published
Categorized as Radiance

On Self-Confrontation

One could almost say the heart of reflec­tive lead­er­ship is the capac­i­ty for self-con­fronta­tion. It is not real­ly a skill. It is more a “psy­cho­log­i­cal move,” a men­tal and emo­tion­al re-posi­­tion­ing to look very hon­est­ly at one­self and one’s sit­u­a­tion. With­out it, we have no way to accu­rate­ly judge or respond to sit­u­a­tions, espe­cial­ly when… Con­tin­ue read­ing On Self-Con­fronta­tion