isaiah on Healing the Past

Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her first experience with caving, the exploration of caves that are not prepared or made easily accessible for inexperienced explorers. Her guides gave her a bit of helpf...

What is the shape of your pain? Is your pain a gaping wound? Is it stuffed into the back corner of a closet, or is it neatly categorized and filed away with annotations that no one but you understand?...

There are two golden days in the week, upon which, and about which, I never worry—two carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday; Yesterday, with its ...

Gracious God, you receive us in your gentle arms. You anoint us with your healing presence. Help us to be mindful of your mercy, your deep compassion for the wounds of the world, and your willing pres...

My husband, Doug, is an athlete whose body is protesting. He has had numerous knee injuries and torn his Achilles tendon twice. Doctors have operated on him, put casts on him and sent him home, thereb...

My friend Ray McMillan introduced me to the Liberty Bell as a perfect object lesson for America’s racial divide. In addressing why “the bell won’t ring,” Ray describes the crack as a perfect illustrat...

Remember Miss Haversham in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations? Her entire life was defined by the fact that she was jilted on her wedding day. People can become very attached to their pain and i...

Theophane, a Cistercian monk residing at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, tells a striking story that beautifully illustrates such letting go: I saw a monk working alone in the vegetab...

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope ...