thought exercise on Hiding

Another feature of shame’s presentation is that of hiding. Whether it is the involution into the silence of our own minds or the literal turning away from someone with a downcast facial expression wit...

Shame has two conflicting instincts. It needs to isolate and hide, and it needs a community in which to be transparent. Hiding, of course, usually wins. It is the easier and more natural of the two. B...

On the evening of October 15, 1940, London experienced one of the fiercest attacks of the Blitz. A total of 480 German aircraft dropped approximately 386 tons of high explosives and 70,000 incendiary ...

The relationship between wartime leaders Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been well chronicled by historians of the period. On one visit to the United States, Roosevelt wheeled hims...

Why is shame so painful? In this short excerpt, professor and philosopher Gregg Ten Elsof provides a helpful insight: The experience of shame always involves the sense of diminished social standin...

Arthur Conan Doyle, the ingenious creator of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, once found great humor in a practical joke he played on 12 famous friends. Each of these men was virtuous and highly respect...

Have you ever noticed that some people hide their kindness? Fred Allen, an American comedian and writer, would always hide behind his own cynicism after performing a kind act. One time Allen rushed ou...

And so, like runaway slaves, we either flee our own reality or manufacture a false self which is mostly admirable, mildly prepossessing, and superficially happy. We hide what we know or feel ourselves...

Many have heard of the polymath and famous atheist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), whose career as a public intellectual touched on a variety of disciplines, including philosophy (he is considered one o...

Dan B. Allender, in his book Leading Character, tells the story of a friend whose daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. He kept news of his daughter’s illness to himself, fearing that his employees wo...

In The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her father needed to find a safer place for a Jewish mother and child they had been concealing from the Nazis. A local clergyman cam...

Several years ago I saw a television show called Caught on Camera . It featured clips of people being secretly filmed doing all manner of horrific things, precisely because they thought they were...

The man who prosecuted the infamous Manson family for their murders later wrote a book titled Helter Skelter. This phrase was taken from a song performed by a well-known rock music group. Manson...

Churches want to hear nice, optimistic messages, free of the mention of sin or a call for repentance. Churches want nice, lean programs, directed at nice, clean families, leading to growth without sac...

While it has become unpopular in many circles, including many Christian circles, to avoid the "s" word (sin), some, including the writer John Steinbeck, see it's value. In his travelogue...

A number of years ago, when sabbath laws were still a contentious issue, a church group was picketing a stadium just before a Sunday game. When Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay arrived, the minister co...

Before I spoke at a conference, a soloist sang one of my favorite songs, “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful. Until she got to the tenth word. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a soul like ...

There is an old legend about a rich, yet selfish old man who kept all of his wealth hidden away in a secret chest in the darkest corner of his attic. Each night, when he was sure no one was watching, ...

It’s a word we do not often use in daily conversation, book groups, or church pulpits, but shame is something we all experience. It’s the feeling that we have missed the mark according to our own stan...

My wife is a very social person. She loves being with groups of people, having dinners, celebrating special occasions or just hanging out with her friends. She is an elementary school teacher, which m...

Of the seventy-three psalms that are linked to David’s story, thirteen refer to specific incidents in his life. These references pull into focused clarity various parts of the story of this person who...

Sisters Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were ultimately sent to the Ravensbrück after being arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 for hiding Jewish people and members of the Dutch resistance from the Nazis. In ...

Recently a professor shared with me a college student’s reflections in response to my earlier writings on solitude and silence:  I was not born into a world relatively unaffected by technology lik...

On May 1, 2023, a small aircraft carrying seven passengers crashed deep in the Amazon rainforest, one of the most remote regions on Earth. The Cessna had been flying between two villages in southern C...

Many of us presume that atheists and agnostics don’t think or care one bit for God. But this is not the case. Heinrich Böll, a German writer and devout Catholic, once joked, “I don’t like these atheis...

Once, there was a devout woman who prayed every day in her small apartment, expressing her faith loudly and fervently. Her neighbor, an atheist, often overheard her prayers, which drove her nuts. When...

When Napoleon was bombing Vienna in 1805, his shells rained down across the city, striking buildings at random. One cannonball crashed into a schoolroom, shattering walls and windows. Inside, an eight...

This difference between possession and enjoyment is well illustrated in the story of Louis Delcourt. He was a young French soldier during the First World War who overstayed his leave and, fearing disg...

Every year at the end of November, my husband, Ike, and I load the kids in the car and drive to the nearest Christmas tree lot. We are committed “real tree” people—not to be confused with “fake tree” ...

Imagine a remote village in Africa. No modern Westerner has ever set foot there. The natives live off the land, using the same ancient methods and tools as their forefathers used for the last thousand...