ruth on Chronic Illness

An individual doesn’t get cancer, a family does.

My friend Wendy calls the incremental disappointments we endure over the years “the slow leak of life.”

An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...

The etymology of certain words can profoundly enrich our understanding and experience of life. Consider the word “consolation.” Its roots lie in the Latin words “con-” meaning “ “to be ” and “solus,...

Adapted from Ch 4 of On Getting out of Bed. Why is Existence Good? Living for the sake of living—doing things so that you can continue to efficiently do things—begs the question, Why live? To live...

What’s the bravest thing you ever did? . . . Getting up this morning.

A student who had recently lost his sight was sent to the Seeing Eye Institute for the Blind in Morristown, New Jersey, for specialized training. Upon arrival, he was greeted by another young ma...

I have a friend who says he wants to write a book on the life of Jesus and call it “a theology of interruptions.” Because, he says, so many of the things that Jesus said or did in the Gospel stories h...

My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.

Jesus’ parable [of the banquet in Luke 14:16-23] makes it clear that there are business and career invitations . Some people had real estate that demanded attention, and others had invested in ox...

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain an...

Love cures people: the ones who receive love and the ones who give it, too.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.

Love alone makes heavy burdens light and bears in equal balance things pleasing and displeasing. Love bears a heavy burden and does not feel it, and love makes bitter things tasteful and sweet.

Our current cultural moment makes rich, life-giving friendships like the one David and Jonathan shared a challenge. We are connected like never before, yet isolated and lonely like never before. MIT p...

Identities—what makes us who we are, the kind of people we are—is what we love. More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the...

“God pity them both! and pity us all,  Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;  For of all sad words of tongue or pen,  The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’  Ah, well! for us all some...

And so we arrive at autumn, the conclusion of our ordinary time in the land. The seeds planted at the start of our pilgrimage have produced a harvest in fields, homes, and towns. Farms display God’s a...

To bless is to bridge. A blessing is a bridge to belonging, built right in the place we feel separated from hope. Words of blessing bring us back to the beautiful truth of being human: we belong to on...

What is our responsibility to our neighbor? This is a question many have asked, including the Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas. Meditating on the topic he observed, “To patiently endure wrongs done ...

Friends are individuals who are relational assets and not liabilities. Friends are those whom God escorts into our environments because there is something they need to be for us in order to help us be...

Emma Darwin, a devoted wife to Charles, did not share his passion for science, nor did she pretend to be captivated by the many lectures and events she attended by his side. On one occasion, as they s...

For Those Who Still Hope I am Sarah  Bitter and barren   Burnt out by this promise that never came Worn out from waiting  Laughing to hide the aching  Longing for these empty arms to hold a baby B...

Lord – You are good …and Your goodness knows no bounds. When we were lost, You sought us out, found us and brought us home. When we were alone, You came near to us, and You gave us a new circle of fri...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? On the Road to Jerusalem Luke 13 begins with Jesus teaching on the nature of the kingdom of God and it concludes with ...

An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatibl...

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then, and be “safe”?

The story is told (as in, it’s made up!) of a small dog that had been struck by a car and lay wounded by the side of the road. A doctor driving by noticed the dog was still alive, stopped his car, pic...

Sometimes to follow in the footsteps of Jesus is to walk away from others or to let them walk away from us.

If I asked you the same question I asked my patient Aaron—“What do you want?”—and you could for a moment put aside the predictable anxiety that comes with it, I’m confident that at some point in your ...