FEBRUARY 2025, SERENITY

Andy Borowitz, on the staff of the New Yorker, normally writes political satire. But in a post on January 1, 2025, he offered some ideas for reflection. “And the main point if mindfulness, is that all we have is right now,” he wrote. “The past is...

NOVEMBER 2024

Since the Writing as Healing group happened to meet on November 11, Memorial Day, we focused on the theme of courage. We discussed the meaning of courage: physical courage, taking risks, doing or facing difficult things, or sticking with something when it would be...

We often hear about the importance of love and of charity, and it might be worth talking about what each of those words means. When I was looking for quotes to use in this session, “love” was associated with romantic love, and “charity” with...

FEBRUARY 2024 DEALING WITH TOXIC REMARKS

As we all know, what other people say to us can be a source of significant emotional distress. A toxic remark can stick with us for days, even if it wasn’t especially important to the person who said it, and even if that person is not particularly important to us. It...

NOVEMBER 2023 THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

This month, we used Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” as a springboard to discuss how we feel about decisions years after we’ve made them. Here is the poem — or, if you prefer, you can listen to Frost reading it here. THE ROAD NOT...