psychology dector

All this week, I’ve been thinking about how we bear witness to our lives.   To me, it takes mindfulness:   live every moment in that moment.   Or, slow down every moment.   To bear witness to another’s life also requires mindfulness.   It is not awareness of breathing or of a particular piece of music or a specific activity like walking, one foot in front of the other.   It’s deep listening both to what is spoken in our lives, by nature, by others, and also what is not said with words but communicated through posture, expression, non-verbal sounds—in short, body language, something deeper than spoken words. All during the past, stress-filled week—the weeks never get easier no matter what the schedule says—I tried to find an island of calm, a meditative moment where I could summon up my focus, my mindfulness.   I failed.   All I managed was to sit for a few minutes until the panic set in, moments where I did not know how I would ever let go and ju...

Col. Charles E. Shelton “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”   Gustave Flaubert In the early days of the Vietnam War, Charles Shelton, was shot down over Laos while taking reconnaissance photographs of Viet Cong and Laotian military POW camps on the shared border between the two countries.   It was his thirty-third birthday.   His plane was armed only with cameras, but his fighter jet escorts saw his parachute deploy, watched him float to the earth and land in the steaming jungle, and they talked to him repeatedly over his radio throughout the night.   He spent three days hiding from Viet Cong and Laotian patrols before being captured and transported back to one of the very prisons he had been sent to photograph.   Over the next years, he was tortured and beaten and robbed of his freedom.   In return, he killed three Viet Cong interrogators with a folding chair while he was locked in chains.   He attempted to escape numero...

A Catholic Prayer for the Dead: God our Father, Your power brings us to birth Your providence guides our lives And by your command we return to dust. Lord, those who die still live in your presence Their lives change but do not end I pray in hope for my family, relatives and friends And for all the dead known to you alone. In company with Christ Who died and now lives May they rejoice in your kingdom Where all our tears are wiped away. Unite us together again in one family To sing your praise forever and ever. Amen. Do we cease to exist when we die, or are we changed into another form?   Do we move from this earthly dimension into another dimension, one regulated by science and physics rather than religion and faith? Is the pattern reflected in nature—caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly? In some ways, though, the caterpillar is inherent within the butterfly.   But from another point of view, it is difficult to see the caterpillar within the newly emerged butterfly. This cor...

Annie Dillard ’s books have always had a deeper, more spiritual quality.   Many are just like Buddhists’ works—short, pithy, and intense, the kinds of books where one reads a few sentences and then must stop to contemplate and internalize the insights.   Her greatest are A Pilgrim At Tinker Creek (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007), An American Childhood (Harper & Row, 2013), Teaching A Stone To Talk:  Expeditions and Encounters (Harper Perennial, 2013), The Writing Life (Harper Perennial, 2013), and the book under consideration here, For The Time Being (Vintage, 2000). In truth, this is my second trip through this book.   The first time, not only did I find the book moving and inspirational, but the author led me to other works that are now an integral part of my library.   She opens the book with a quote from Evan S. Connell :   “The legend of the Traveler appears in every civilization, perpetually assuming new forms, afflictions, powers, an...