While visiting Peggy’s Cove on a mild spring day, prepared to take some shots of the lighthouse and the rocky shoreline, I noticed that the sun was melting the ice that had settled in the pools along the rocks. I decided to change lenses, popped in my macro, and took some hand-held details of the […]
A good friend of mine recently posed this question to me in an email: Sometimes you can be around people and continue to feel alone, like nobody understands. So hopefully that doesn’t happen to you. If it does, what does that mean? Mis-perception? I ask this question honestly because trauma can do weirdness to perception. […]
In recovery, I am ambivalent, perhaps indifferent, to the matter of whether or not God exists. If the gift of recovery is available only to believers, and therefore unattainable to non-believers, does this not make for a punishing and cruel God? More importantly, does it not also place limits on God, since God’s grace is […]
Suffering. We all experience it as a fact of human existence. But what happens to us when we begin to define ourselves by our suffering? Some say that suffering is a choice. For those who actually suffer from mental health challenges, it does not appear to be or feel like any sort of choice. It […]
Power can be understood as having two aspects: power-over and power-with. Power-over others arises from and unequal capacity for effective action and access to resources. This could involve individuals or groups holding the means and influence to control the actions of others. Of interest in this discussion is power that comes from within a person […]
I was in a recovery workshop group yesterday, and the facilitator was asking participants for their understandings of the word ‘hope’. I struggled with that one. I have a difficult relationship with the word. I’m not even sure what it means. It’s probably one of those words that people toss around assuming it means the […]
The Peace of Wild Things 