“Do you ever think to yourself, Is this it? Is this all there is?” someone asked me on Easter. He and his wife had been going through a very difficult period managing their special-needs son. Both looked drained and exhausted. “Actually, no,” I responded. “The belief in an afterlife is what I cling to many...

I pray Thomas Merton’s prayer every day for discernment. In case you’re not familiar with it, I thought I’d share it here. My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahed of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really...

Major depression is nearly twice as common in women as in men. About 12 million American women experience an episode of major depression at some points in their lives, but only 6 million American men. According to the National Institue of Mental Health (NIMH), nearly 30 percent of women in the United States report depression...

Twelve us of us sit in a circle at the third session of the mindfulness-based stress reduction course (MBSR) offered at the hospital, the program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn 35 years ago at his Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to help persons with difficult and chronic illnesses better manage their...

Someone added an author page for me on Facebook last year and I updated it today and sent a few invitations to Facebook friends. I’m hoping the page can become like Group Beyond Blue, the support group for depression I moderated a few years back. It was such an engaging group of people, and I...