My wife Erin and I were in a fairly significant car accident Friday night when a pickup truck ran a red light. While we are banged up pretty well, we are alive - and that's generally not something you think much about less than a week before the holidays. Ironically, the day before that I…
Blind Spots
We all have blind spots. Some of us have physical blind spots, but almost all of us have metaphorical blind spots. Part of the spiritual life is searching out those blind spots and working to heal them. We may well never eliminate them all, because they can pop up throughout our life. When teachers we…
Social Media and Seeking Support
There are things that are clearly out of the ordinary, beyond the pale, tragedies of great scale and scope that can set is back financially to a profound extent. I have no problem with people turning to social media for support both emotional and financial in such situations. If your home is destroyed and you…
What We Are Missing
It seems to me that we have lost sight of a basic ethical principal. I would state that principal as follows: An action is right or wrong independent of the impact of that action on me. Stated another, perhaps less gentle, way no one of us is the center of the ethical universe. Indulge me…
Everything has Multiple Causes
M. Scott Peck, of The Road Less Traveled fame, liked to save everything is multiply determined, which sounds much cooler than "has multiple causes" but isn't quite as clear, so I surrendered coolness for clarity. That may be the story of my life, but that's another post. I was in a room full of people…
Projects
I wonder how many Misadventures have started As projects conceived Early Saturday. Ambition rushing out to Home Depot, nothing Save twine, a car roof And what seemed like a master plan. Roadside tragedy Splintered hands, frayed rope Shattered plywood, airborne bed Witness plans awry.
Gaslighting
Why are my religious friends jerks?
It's a question I hear quite often. People will tell me that they like their "everyday" friends more than their spiritual or religious friends. They can easily relate to the former, but the latter - even for people with advanced formation in things spiritual - are hard to be around. They say or do things…
Change
If you want your circumstances to change, you are going to have to take the first step and change how you relate and react to what is happening. If you are not willing to do that, the only one you have to blame is yourself. Nothing can change if everything stays the same.
Not My Stuff
I frequently encounter situations where someone has taken on the developmental or recovery work of a friend or loved one. They mean well, and they want to help their loved one in their process, but somewhere along the way a line gets crossed and their efforts turn from helping the individual in question to hurting…
Craig Bergland 