Has anyone ever loved you back to life again after you have suffered? There are many endings, griefs and tragedies to be borne and accompanied in our lives. If we are fortunate, we do not have to face them alone. With the help of others,…

At the end of my New Employee Orientation presentation on Spiritual Care at our Medical Center, I offered to answer questions from the audience. When they ran out of questions, I threw in one of my own, “Would you like to know what is the…

When I logged into my computer program this morning, I was asked my name, password and a new item. “Prove your humanity. 9 + 9 = __.” To me, the answer to a simple math equation does not prove my humanity. However, what does prove…

My underwear theory of self esteem goes like this: if your underwear is old and worn out, it is time to work on your self esteem. Step one: Go buy yourself all new underwear and throw out the old stuff. Step two: If you have…

I have a confession to make. I am a recovering quickaholic. I used to arise early and jump on my bicycle, mounted on a wind trainer, and read and respond to my work emails. It was an expectation that managers at our medical center would…

This morning, the rain stopped long enough for me to walk our dog Rafa. We strolled out to the main road to see a different view of the Ko’olau mountains, where I counted five waterfalls in the two-thousand-feet verdant green cliffs a half-mile away. Rafa’s…

My family did not fight in the Civil War. My mother was a fourth generation Californian and my father was from the Crow Nation reservation in Montana. So, it came as a surprise when I moved to North Carolina and was asked, “Are you a…

Dear twenty-three-year-old self, Congratulations on your Masters degree. Now, you are headed to a “tall steeple church” as the associate minister in North Carolina, where the population is growing. You are so fortunate to have found what you are called to do with your life.…

“I do not forgive Dylann Roof, a racist terrorist whose name I hate saying or knowing,” wrote Roxanne Gay, an Op-Ed writer for the New York Times, on June 23, 2015. She had no connection to the racist massacre of the nine African Americans in Mother…

Running through the edge of the surf on the hard-packed sand, I looked up where the miles long beach met a lush green mountain. I smiled from pure pleasure. There were about two hundred of us racing on the beach at six thirty this morning.…