Lucid Reunion

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.  – Stephen LaBerge

The sign on my office door says John Longfellow, PsyD – Individual and Family Counseling. I’ve been a psychologist for 20 years, helping people unravel their burdens and find resolution.

About three years ago, my enthusiasm flagged. Call it a midlife crisis, but listening to others grew tedious, especially with clients who took little responsibility for their healing. I nodded my head and kept appropriate eye contact, but I felt like a bobble-head toy. My wife noticed that I’d lost my lost my passion.

“You’re just not yourself,” she said, kindly but with an edge of exasperation. “I don’t have a prescription, but you need to find a way to connect with your old zest. You still have a lot of years ahead of you. We still have a lot of years ahead of us.”

She was right. I needed a new spark, a fresh avenue of exploration.

That direction came unexpectedly. I was listening to a podcast on my way to work called Wake Up Inside Your Dreams, a fascinating overview of lucid dreaming. The podcaster said, “It’s possible to step into our minds with our eyes open. We begin to see the architecture of our fears and our longings. We realize that we’ve built every wall and horizon ourselves.”

I’ve always had vivid dreams, but their meanings evaporate as I awaken. I knew a little about lucid dream theory, but the podcast spurred me to sharpen my research. I devoured everything I could find, from Jung’s Red Book to LaBerge, Bogzaran, Holziner, Aspy, and every article archived by The Lucidity Institute.

I began to experiment in my own life, keeping detailed dream journals and using practices like reality testing and mnemonic induction. It paid off. I could stay longer in my visions, understand more symbols, and even translate a few simple lessons into my waking world.

But still, something eluded me, something deeply connected to that sense of joy I’d been lacking for so long.

Gradually, I integrated this new focus into my practice, becoming a guide for others in their nightly walkabouts. Word got out through the therapeutic community. New referrals sought me out for release from night terrors, recurring guilt dreams, or lost loves who visited frequently like ghosts. I taught them to stay calm, to recognize the subtle distortions of the dream world: a light switch that doesn’t work, a clock whose hands refuse to move, words that rearrange themselves when you blink. These are the cues, I told them. The seams of the dream world. Pull at them, and you can wake up inside your own story.

I never imagined the fullness of what my own subconscious was preparing for me.

It began one winter night after an exhausting day of sessions. I’d just finished with Claire, a woman haunted by a recurring nightmare of drowning in a river that looked suspiciously like the one outside her childhood home. That night, perhaps still affected by her angst, I dreamed of a place I’d never been, an old train platform under a sky the color of brass.

It was still at first. No wind, no movement, just a suspended hush. The platform stretched endlessly in both directions, lined with benches and antique lamps that cast faint halos of light. A few people milled about, blurred, like they were painted in watercolor.

And then I saw him in sharp focus.

Across the tracks, on a bench opposite mine, sat a boy. He was swinging his legs and rolling a toy car from the palm of one hand to the other. I didn’t need to guess who he was. I knew instantly that I was looking at myself at eight years old.

The shock of recognition was almost physical. Inside the dream, I felt my chest tighten and my breath quicken. He looked exactly as I remembered myself. Thin, serious, with that same stubborn cowlick that refused to lie flat no matter how much my mother spat on her palm. He was wearing a red windbreaker I hadn’t thought about in decades.

I called out his name—my name—but even as the sound left my mouth, a train thundered between us, all smoke and screeching metal. When it passed, the bench was empty.

I woke up with my heart hammering. The clock read 3:14 a.m. My sheets were twisted around me, damp with sweat. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and tried to tell myself what I’d tell a patient: it’s just an image, a projection of memory, nothing more. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something in me had been waiting for this encounter.

The dream came again the next night.

This time the station looked older, like a faded photograph. The air shimmered with sunset light. The boy was there again, farther away, walking along the opposite platform. I shouted, but my voice came out thick, like a sound underwater. He turned his head slightly, enough for me to see his eyes. There was no surprise in them, only recognition and something else I couldn’t name.

Then the scene shifted, as dreams often do. The tracks vanished. I was standing in a field outside my grandparents’ farm, the one I hadn’t visited since childhood. The boy was near the tree line, still holding that toy car. I started toward him, but the ground turned to mud. I slogged forward, desperate to reach him, until the earth pulled at my ankles like quicksand. Just before I sank, I woke up gasping.

By the end of that week, the dreams were nightly appointments. Sometimes I’d find the boy in places I hadn’t thought about in years. The hallway of my elementary school, the corner of our old backyard where I set up battlefields for my toy soldiers, my childhood bedroom as sunlight streamed through the window. Each time, I was a step closer to him, but each time, something intervened.

The researcher in me cataloged every detail in a notebook: dates, colors, emotional tones. The therapist in me found it thrilling to be recording pure, personal data. But the man in me felt a form of grief. There was something I’d lost in the past, and it was still slipping through my fingers.

I began to see small echoes of those dreams in my waking life. A boy on the bus holding a toy car. A poster in a coffee shop showing a train steaming into the horizon. It was eerie enough that I called a colleague I trusted and explained what was happening.

“I hear you, John,” he said. “Do you know Jung’s theory of synchronicity?”

“A bit. Describe it to me.”

“He said that sometimes events coincide in time and appear meaningfully related, but they lack any real causal connection. That sounds like what’s happening to you.”

I muttered an agreement as we hung up, but I knew better. I knew that my subconscious was breaching the border between worlds. And I began to understand the exasperation of my patients. As one of them had said about his recurring nightmares, “If there’s a lesson here, just fucking teach it to me and get out of my mind! You’re driving me crazy!”

I tried all the techniques I taught others, but none of them stopped the dreams. If anything, the lucidity deepened. I could feel the texture of the air. I could smell dust and rain. I could hear my own heartbeat, quick and young, as if borrowed from the boy I pursued.

Three weeks in, the dream took a new turn.

I found myself in a park I knew intimately. It was where my father taught me to ride a bike. The grass was impossibly green, the air full of the smell of lilacs. My father wasn’t there, but the boy was sitting beneath a tree, his knees drawn up, that toy car in his hands.

For a moment I couldn’t move. After all my pursuing, it now felt wrong to approach him, like I was intruding on sacred ground. But the boy looked up, and I saw no confusion or fear in his face, just patience.

“You took long enough,” he said. His voice was clear and even, nothing ghostly about it.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said.

He smiled, my own smile softened by time. “No. You’ve been trying not to.”

Those words cut through me. I wanted to ask what he meant, but he stood and started walking toward the swings, motioning for me to follow. The scene wavered, colors bleeding at the edges. I fought to stay asleep, to hold the moment.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Because you finally are.” And then he walked right up to me and handed me the toy car. I looked down and recognized it instantly, a Matchbox green Camaro that had been one of my favorites. Our eyes locked and he smiled in a way that filled my body with light and warmth.

“I lost this years ago,” I said.

He shrugged and sighed. “You stopped looking.”

When I woke, my hand was open, my palm warm, as if I’d been holding something small and solid. There were tears on my cheeks. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel tired. I felt lighter, as though some long-frozen part of me had started to thaw.

Still, I’m a scientist at heart. I spent the morning journaling and cross-referencing symbols. The park. The train. The toy car. All anchors of memory, all pointing toward one obvious conclusion: the boy represented my unintegrated childhood self, the part I’d buried under professionalism and adult control. I regained my usual clinical detachment.

That afternoon, during a session, one of my patients—a middle-aged woman suffering grief after the loss of her mother—told me she’d dreamed of chasing her mom through endless corridors, never quite reaching her. Normally, I would have guided her toward strategies for confronting the dream figure. Instead, I said, “Maybe she’s not running from you. Maybe she’s leading you somewhere.”

She stared at me, wide-eyed, and nodded slowly, as if I’d just offered her a map.

In truth, I was offering one to myself.

The dreams didn’t stop after that, but they softened. The boy would appear beside me now instead of across some impassable barrier. Sometimes we’d sit quietly together on a curb, a hill, or the roof of a house. He never said much. It was like communion, and it lasted longer than any other dream experience I’d had, time rolling out ahead of us.      

Changes seeped into my waking life. I started taking walks with my wife after dinner instead of falling asleep at my desk. One night she held my hand and said, “I like this new spring in your step.” I called my sister, whom I hadn’t spoken to in months. I even dug through an old storage box in the attic and found a Polaroid of myself at eight, sitting under that same tree in the park. My father had written on the back: To my brave boy. Keep going.

That night, the dream came again, but this time there was no boy. I was standing alone in the park, dusk settling around me, the air thick with that lilac scent. The toy car lay in the grass at my feet. I picked it up, turned it over, felt its weight. From somewhere distant, I heard laughter—mine, but younger. Then everything faded into light.

I woke before dawn, not startled this time, just awake. Truly awake.

Since then, my dreams have changed in tone. Sometimes the boy appears, older now, walking beside me through unfamiliar cities. On other nights, he’s absent entirely, but I feel his presence like a hand at my back. I no longer chase him. We’re walking in the same direction, a deep, lucid reunion between who I was and who I’ve become.

A few weeks ago, a patient asked me, “Dr. Longfellow, what happens when we master lucid dreaming and can control everything?”

I smiled. “I’ve learned in my own dreams that control isn’t the point. It’s more important to listen and let the dream speak its own strange language.”

She nodded and looked down with tears on her cheeks.

These nights, when I drift toward sleep, I feel an exciting flicker of anticipation. I know that somewhere in that vast theater of my mind, a child version of me might still be sitting beneath a tree, turning a toy car in his hands.

And he’s not waiting anymore.

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The Necessity of Wildness

(Click here to download my expanded compilation of text and photos called The Necessity of Wildness. Best viewed as a two-page spread in Adobe Acrobat)

John Muir once said that “wildness is a necessity.” I agree, and it’s a truth that stands as an indictment of our current society. We live in a culture that multiplies distractions. We confuse convenience with meaning. We mistake consumer goods for necessities. Against the backdrop of this noise, wild places call to us—not as optional luxuries, but as lifelines to our truest selves. This call has echoed through my life since childhood, sometimes quietly, sometimes like an alarm.

I grew up in the Los Angeles Basin, a hazy expanse of freeways, stucco homes, and constant motion. In those early years, before the Clean Air Act of 1970 curbed the worst pollution, Smog Alerts were frequent. Our teachers sometimes kept us indoors for recess, because the outside air literally burned our lungs.

My childhood could easily have been devoid of natural beauty. But my father, at the considerable sacrifice of commuting long hours, insisted on something different. He moved us to an area of the Los Angeles Basin that still held remnants of old Southern California: chapparal covered hills, orange and avocado orchards, creeks running through ravines.

My brothers and I roamed those hills as if they were our personal kingdom. We named special places, caught lizards and toads, and wandered stream beds that smelled deeply of loam. I can close my eyes even now and see the silhouette of a great horned owl gliding over our house at twilight, taking its place in the eucalyptus trees that bordered our property. I remember falling over backwards, not to make a snow angel, but to carve an outline of my body in a field of tall wild mustard, gazing at the blue sky above, listening to the buzz of pollinating bees.

As I grew older, Boy Scouting deepened my relationship with wildness. Our troop hiked the John Muir Trail, rafted the Colorado River, and camped in the Mojave Desert surrounded by Joshua trees. I began to understand Muir’s belief that these places were “fountains of life.” I felt that fountain rising in me. Still, as adulthood encroached with work, ambition, and responsibilities, I sometimes forgot to return to the source.

Years later, emerging from one of the most difficult periods of my life, a spiritual guide got my attention. “As you piece together this new beginning,” he told me, “reserve time alone in nature. This isn’t just nostalgia about your childhood. It’s a portal to the serenity your soul is seeking.” That simple truth rang like a bell. I listened. Since then, immersing myself in nature is no longer a casual hobby; it is woven into my schedule as an essential practice. If I neglect it, I feel the restlessness immediately, a tug from the wild reminding me of what I’ve forgotten.

Once I’m there, these three necessities impress themselves on my soul.

The Necessity of Stillness

Stillness in nature is not the absence of sound. Anyone who has walked in a forest knows its constant music. Stillness is the presence of something deeper, a rootedness. Nature invites us into this realm, and if we let it work its magic, it loosens the grip that multitasking and digital overload exert on our spirits.

I once took a group of inner-city boys from Los Angeles on a backpacking trip into the San Gorgonio Wilderness. It required days of preparation just to get them ready. We had to borrow gear, teach some basic skills, and coax parental signatures from families who had rarely ventured beyond their barrios.

On the trail, the boys kept up a steady stream of macho joking until I stopped them with a challenge. “For the next half hour,” I said, “let’s walk like the Serrano People, the earliest inhabitants of this area. No talking. Just listen.”

They were skeptical, but they fell silent to indulge me. Almost immediately, the forest honored our reverence. Soft wind whispered through the Ponderosa pines. Scrub jays chattered nearby. We saw a family of mule deer browsing in the undergrowth.

Then, a rabbit emerged on the trail ahead. I held up my hand and we paused. Suddenly—almost mythic in its timing—a huge red-tailed hawk swooped down, seized the hare, and lifted it into the sky. We could hear the flapping of its strong wings.

The boys gasped. These hardened kids who had seen too much violence and too little beauty now stood in awe of something vast, powerful, and humbling. In their eyes I saw something I will never forget. Wonder. Pure, undiluted wonder.

The Necessity of Wonder

Wonder expands us. It loosens the grip of our egos, reminding us that we are a small but precious part of a vast, intricate universe. Though I’ve often shown the Hubble Telescope’s eXtreme Deep Field photo to illustrate this point, it’s far better to experience it firsthand. Find a dark sky preserve and lie on your back beneath the Milky Way. Let your eyes drift across the heavens, realizing that some of the “stars” above you are entire galaxies, each holding billions of suns.

So often, when our minds stretch, our spirits follow.

And wonder isn’t reserved for the cosmic. It pulses through ordinary experiences when we pay attention: the scent of creosote after desert rain, the echo of thunder over a plateau, the iridescent shimmer of a dragonfly’s wings. I once awoke in a bamboo hut on Maui to a series of booming sounds. Only later did I learn that it was humpback whales, joyfully slapping their tails in the dark waters of the bay. Wonder like that stays with you, a quiet ember you can relight repeatedly.

The Necessity of Gratitude

If we stay with it, wonder evolves naturally into gratitude, one of the most stabilizing forces in human life. Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever said was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Gratitude opens our eyes not only to the gifts we receive but to the responsibility these gifts confer upon us. When we understand that wildness is a necessity, we feel compelled to protect it, to become stewards of the land and advocates for species that cannot speak for themselves.

This can begin simply with recycling, conserving energy, or planting a pollinator garden. And for some of us, it goes much further. As a Texas Master Naturalist, I have seen ordinary people become extraordinary guardians of the earth. They clean the rivers, remove invasive plant species, and help restore native trees and prairies. They remind me of my own responsibility to help protect the fragile web of life.

Returning to the Wild

A few years ago, on the Pinnacles Trail in Big Bend National Park, I sat beside some ancient rock spires. The noise of modern life, engrained in my chattering thoughts, faded away. Technology, politics, identity, worry, all of it dissolved in the beauty of that place. What remained was a profound stillness. It was an epiphany, both humbling and energizing, connecting me not only with the earth, but with all human beings who have transcended their conditioning and embraced the natural world.

And so, I will always return to the trail, because Muir was right: wildness is not optional. It is a necessity for stillness, for wonder, for gratitude, and ultimately, for becoming whole.

Happy trails to all of you!

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At the Corner of Oglethorpe and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last week, on a trip to Savannah, Georgia, I found myself standing at the corner of Oglethorpe Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the intersection, and I felt the weight of history pressing down on that spot. The street names are a metaphor in one of America’s oldest cities, where the past is never far from view. In Savannah’s history, beauty and brutality entwine like the Spanish moss that drapes its live oaks.

Oglethorpe founded Georgia in 1733. He was initially complicit in systems of oppression, including the Atlantic slave trade. Savannah was one of the most active ports receiving prisoners at the end of their “middle passage.” But later, after witnessing the moral rot that slavery inflicted, Oglethorpe became one of the earliest advocates for abolition. King, born two centuries later, dedicated his life to dismantling the structures of oppression that had calcified into American bedrock.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but see this street corner as a physical manifestation of our national paradox, the constant tension between our worst impulses and our highest ideals.

We all know how this contradiction runs through every chapter of our story. Thomas Jefferson penned words about equality and inalienable rights while enslaving over 600 human beings throughout his lifetime. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, yet within a decade, Black Codes and convict leasing created new systems of forced labor. We fought a world war against fascism with a segregated military, then returned home to a nation where those same soldiers couldn’t sit at lunch counters beside the people they’d fought to protect.

The GI Bill opened pathways to college and homeownership for millions, but discriminatory implementation meant Black veterans were systematically excluded from these opportunities, creating a wealth gap that reverberates today. We built the Interstate Highway System to connect our nation while bulldozing thriving Black neighborhoods to do it.

Our contradictions are brutally visible in our treatment of Native peoples. The ideals of liberty coexisted with policies of forced removal, such as the Trail of Tears that passed through the state of Georgia. Under the banner of divine providence, we displaced entire nations, stripping them of their lands and cultures. Later, federal programs sought to “assimilate” Native children by removing them from their families and erasing their languages in boarding schools.

Many immigrant stories reveal similar paradoxes. The Statue of Liberty promised refuge — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — yet waves of newcomers faced hostility and exclusion. We celebrated Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty while turning away ships of Jewish refugees. Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad were later targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Irish and Italian immigrants were met with suspicion and violence. During World War II, Japanese Americans were interned behind barbed wire, not for crimes but for ancestry. Each generation of immigrants, it seems, has had to fight to prove its belonging in a nation supposedly founded on welcome.

Even our progress reveals the pattern. Brown v. Board of Education declared school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, yet decades later, our schools remain deeply divided by race and opportunity. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected ballot access, yet we’re still fighting over voter ID laws, polling place closures, and redistricting schemes designed to dilute minority votes. We elected our first Black president, then watched as hate crimes and white nationalist organizing surged in response.

And the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. Federal Reserve data shows that the richest 10 percent of American households now own over two-thirds of the nation’s total wealth. Even more telling, the top 1 percent holds 31% percent of our total wealth, just slightly less than the entire bottom 90 percent of U.S. households.1

And yet, I remain hopeful, because America has always been a story of striving. The arc of our history may be jagged, but it bends toward justice when enough of us pull together. From abolitionists and suffragists to civil rights marchers, from modern activists for climate justice to the organizers for LGBTQ+ rights, we continue to strive.

I felt this strongly in my recent participation at a No Kings protest. Progress has never been a gift from the powerful and wealthy. We who believe in a more perfect union must demand it! This is vital to remember at our current juncture in American history, when oligarchs are more brazenly exerting their influence over every aspect of our culture.

As I stood at that intersection in Savannah, the hum of traffic surrounding me, I imagined Oglethorpe and King in conversation, two men separated by centuries yet ultimately united by conscience. Perhaps they would agree that the true test of a nation is not whether it avoids hypocrisy, but whether it keeps pushing toward redemption.

We are still standing at that intersection between what America has been and what it can yet become. And if we listen closely, we will hear Dr. King’s voice reminding us that the dream is not dead.  

It is waiting for us to live it out.

1 – Wealth Inequality – Inequality.org

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The Sacred Journey Beyond Religion

In 2024, the Pew Research Center found that 28% of Americans check “none” as their choice of religion.

So many of us have stepped away from organized faith, not out of rebellion, but from a courageous honesty with ourselves that we could no longer ignore. For some of us, the rituals had grown hollow, the dogmas too small for the vastness of our questions. Others of us saw how our institutions had become rigid or exclusionary.

Here’s a hard-won truth that many of us share. When we trade wonder for certainty, our souls begin to suffocate. As Jesus said in one of his most enduring metaphors, you can’t place new wine into old wineskins. It will only cause further rupture.

Have you ever walked out of a sanctuary you once felt was sacred, wondering if you were leaving behind not just your faith, but the language of your soul? If so, take heart. We are not losing our spirituality. We are rediscovering it in a deeper and freer form.

The Quiet Hunger Within

All of us carry a hunger for meaning that no amount of success, pleasure, or distraction can fill. We want to know that our lives matter, that we belong to something greater than ourselves. This longing stirs in the silence before dawn, in the tears we can’t explain, in the beauty that takes our breath away. It is not a problem to be solved. It is an invitation.

So where do we turn when we yearn for the sacred, but no longer fit inside the old containers?

The Open Path

First, we realize that spirituality was never confined to human temples, effigies, or sacred texts. It is written into the fabric of existence itself. The same Presence that inspired prophets and poets is alive in each of us, waiting for us to notice.

You might glimpse it in a forest trail glowing with morning light.
You might sense it in the deep stillness of meditation, or in the laughter of a friend who sees you fully.
You might feel it in moments of awe, when the boundaries between “you” and “everything else” dissolve.
You might see it looking back at you through the eyes of your child or grandchild.

Each of these is a doorway into the same mystery.

Spiritual satisfaction doesn’t come from subscribing to the right belief, but from cultivating awareness. And as our consciousness grows, so does our compassion, our sense of unity, and our capacity for joy. We begin to live not from fear, but from connection.

Companions on the Road

Our quest for meaning is not a solo expedition. We belong to a vast community of people asking similar questions, struggling with uncertainties, and finding revelations they never imagined. Each of our companions along the way carries a spark of the mystery we seek. When we share our stories, we participate in a sacred exchange. We remind each other that the search itself is holy.

Some of us find this connection through contemplative circles, mindfulness groups, or creative communities. Others of us find it through feeding the hungry, tending the earth, or comforting the lonely.

Wherever we practice love, spirit is present. As the timeless Persian poet, Rumi, once said, “In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.”

Evolving Notions of the Divine

Words are simply pointers. This is a crucial realization. God, Tao, Source, Beloved, Mystery, Great Spirit are all terms intimating something we can never fully capture in language. The immensity of the cosmos and its origin are better experienced through awe. Over time, we find that the divine becomes less a being “out there” and more a living presence within and around everything. We come to see that spirituality is not about believing, but about being fully awake to the sacred dimension of everyday existence.

As our understanding expands, so does our compassion. We stop worrying about who’s right and who’s wrong in matters of faith. We start asking: What helps me love more deeply? What helps me live with gratitude? What helps me serve the wholeness of life?

The Great Thrills of the Journey

The spiritual journey beyond religion may begin with a sense of loss, but discoveries soon fill that void in myriad ways. Imagine:

  • The thrill of realizing that every sunrise, every act of kindness, every moment of awareness is a form of prayer.
  • The freedom of knowing that you no longer need to pretend certainty; that questions themselves are sacred.
  • The joy of feeling at home in the universe, even without a map.

Looking back, we see that we are not exiles. Instead, we have found a calling, an invitation to grow beyond the boundaries of old beliefs and into the spaciousness of wonder.

The Infinite Yes

If you find yourself wandering beyond the walls of religion, trust the journey. Follow the tug of your own curiosity. Keep your heart open to beauty, mystery, and love. The sacred has not abandoned you. It has simply changed its address, moving from the altar to the open sky, from the sermon to the beating of your own heart.

You are still on holy ground.

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A Tale of Two Orphanages

It’s always this way. Call it the vagaries of chance or the randomness of an indifferent universe. Ten soldiers are in a convoy struck by mortar rounds; only two survive. A fire rips through a mountain village; dozens of homes burst into flame while others remain unscathed. A plane makes a crash landing in a cornfield, killing most passengers; a handful walk away from the wreckage. The Guadalupe River in Texas floods a girl’s summer camp, killing dozens; just a week earlier, similar campers had the time of their lives.

Please don’t say it was your god’s will that some lived while others perished. That’s a cruel heaping of insult on injury, and it paints a ghastly picture of your capricious deity.

No. It’s always this way. And so it was with two orphanages in Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900.

But first, some context.

In 1900, Galveston was at the zenith of its heyday, a bustling port with a population of 38,000, known as the “Wall Street of the Southwest” for its concentration of banks, businesses, and wealthy entrepreneurs. It boasted being the third richest city in the United States in proportion to population. All major railroads connected there, and it exported 60% of the state’s cotton crop, rivaling New Orleans. Its grand Victorian mansions and beachfront attractions earned it the nickname the “Queen City of the Gulf.”

Galveston also had more than its share of orphans, being the last stop for so-called “orphan trains.” Operating between 1854 and 1929, this social experiment transported 200,000 children from crowded Eastern cities to foster homes in the rural Midwest that were short on farming labor. The co-founders of the movement claimed the children were abandoned, abused, or homeless. They were mostly the offspring of immigrants living in urban slums. The movement garnered widespread criticism for its ineffective screening of caretakers and its insufficient follow-ups on placements. In some cases, the children were no better off than slaves after adoption.

By the time these trains rolled into Galveston, the children on board were those found less desirable. They ended up in one of two places: St. Mary’s Orphanage Asylum or the Galveston Orphan’s home. There they shared quarters with orphans whose parents had succumbed to a yellow fever epidemic.

Then came the fateful day of September 8, when a hurricane dubbed the Great Storm of 1900 made landfall on Galveston Island. With sustained winds up to 145 miles per hour and a storm surge reaching 12 feet, it decimated the city. Exact death tolls vary, but some estimates say up to 12,000 perished. Another 10,000 were homeless. The storm is still the greatest natural disaster in terms of its death toll to ever strike the United States. Massive funeral pyres burned everywhere in the aftermath, and barges carried stacks of the dead into the Gulf of Mexico for burial at sea.

St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum housed 93 children aged 2-23, cared for by 10 sisters of the Charity of the Incarnate Word. As the storm began to rage, the nuns, in a desperate attempt to save their young charges, relocated them from the boys’ dormitory to the newer girls’ dorm. From there, they watched the boys’ section collapse under the wind and tide. They offered prayers and sang hymns to comfort the terrified group, but by nightfall, the winds raged at 150 mph. The nuns tied a piece of clothesline around each of their waists and then around the wrists of some of the children, binding their fates together. The mighty storm finally lifted the girls’ dorm off its foundations. The bottom fell out and the roof crashed down. Only three boys survived by clinging to a nearby tree. They were later rescued at sea by some fisherman in a small boat.

Galveston Orphans’ Home had only been in its new structure for five years when the storm hit. Though the central part of the building collapsed, the rest remained stable. Staff and children, as well other residents, took refuge in the stronger sections and all of them survived the cataclysm.

On the anniversary of the storm in 1994, Galveston dedicated a marker at 69th Street and Seawall Boulevard, honoring the former site of St. Mary’s. The hymn Queen of the Waves, which had been sung by the sisters to calm the children, was part of the ceremony.

The Galveston Orphan’s Home was rebuilt with help from generous donors. Today it houses the Bryan Museum, which I recently visited. In its basement are artifacts found at the home after the storm. Among them is a small slipper once worn by a young child.

Two orphanages, two vastly different outcomes. When this happens in life, what can we do?

We can remember.

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Victor Benavides and the Power of Words

I’ve had the privilege of connecting with writers from vastly different countries and experiences. It’s like being part of an international family. Periodically I interview them to help others understand their backstories.

This time, meet Victor Luis Benavides. He was born in Harlingen, Texas, and raised in Olmito, Texas, where much of his sense of place and storytelling first took shape. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration in Management from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2017, followed by a Master of Business Administration in 2019, and a Master of English Studies in 2025. His writing has appeared in Boundless: The Anthology of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival (2025, 2026) and Tales from the Vault, Volume 3 by Story Sanctum Publishing. He is a Professor of English in the Rio Grande Valley, where his work with students continues to shape his approach to language, storytelling, and expression. He has been dedicated to helping students discover the transformative power of language. He believes that words are more than a means of communication—they are tools for growth, empowerment, and the pursuit of one’s dreams. In the classroom, he encourages students to find their own voices and embrace the art of expression.

KVT: First, Victor, thank you for taking the time to share with us. I see that you grew up in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (RGV). As a fellow Texan, I’ve spent a lot of time on both sides of the American/Mexican border. Does your family have historic roots in that area?

VB: My father moved here in 1943 when he was fourteen years old. I remember him sharing a story about his first day here—how his brother gave him a pair of canvas shoes that he cherished. He began his career as a radio personality and DJ in the Valley, and later became a writer, producer, director, and actor in several hit films shot locally, such as Treinta Segundos Para Morir and La Banda del Carro Rojo. My mother was born at Mercy Hospital in Brownsville, Texas, and grew up in Port Isabel. She met my father in 1979.

KVT: Your father sounds like a creative character. Do you remember any specific advice he gave you?

VB (chuckling): My dad gave me advice about everything and anything. When it came to writing, he said to write about something that I find truly inspiring. If I get excited with my own words and feel a sense of wonderment and connection, then I have something worthwhile to share with the world. He also told me that whenever I write fiction, add a bit of truth because it will then become greater. Lastly, he told me to write while in the moment. If I feel inspired in the moment and write something down, even if it’s incomplete, I know that one day I will revisit that piece of writing and finish it when inspiration strikes again. 

KVT: Your bio also says that after earning an MBA, you went on to get a master’s in English. What prompted the shift?

VB: I’m an English teacher here in the RGV, and I decided to pursue a master’s in English studies to strengthen my skills and broaden my knowledge of the field. I felt that deepening my understanding of rhetoric, literacy, and composition would make me a more effective and impactful teacher for my students.

KVT: I love this quote from you: “I have always been fascinated with the power of words and how they can stir emotions and help a reader transcend into different literary worlds.” Do you have some favorite authors who influenced you?

VB: Authors who have influenced me deeply include Américo Paredes, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, John Berger, Rudolfo Anaya, Margarita Longoria, Sandra Cisneros, and many others. I’m also drawn to science fiction and admire writers like George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and others for their ability to expand the imagination and reflect on society.

KVT: Can you share any anecdotes from your teaching when you saw students whose emotions were stirred by the power of words?

VB: There’s a famous story I read to my students called The Appointment in Samarra. It’s about a wealthy merchant who sends his servant to get provisions in the bustling marketplace of Baghdad. The servant returns full of fear. When the merchant asks him why, he says that he saw Death in the image of a cloaked woman and she seemed to make a threatening gesture. The servant asks to borrow the merchant’s horse, then gallops to the faraway city of Samarra to hide and escape from her. Later, the merchant goes down to the marketplace and sees the same cloaked figure “Why did you make a threatening gesture towards my servant?” he asks her. “That was not a threatening gesture,” she says. “I was simply startled to see him in Baghdad, because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.” After reading this, I get a lot of wide-eyed epiphany-induced looks from my students. They realize that the story elicits an emotional response from them because they can identify with the servant’s feelings. No young student really takes into account their own mortality. At that age, they feel invincible. However, the story helps them realize that death is inevitable and that time is a precious resource. Although it’s a bleak story, it helps students appreciate the power of words.

KVT: What are some of your plans for using your writing and your new degree?

VB: I’ve always seen education as a lifelong journey; we’re constantly learning and growing. With my writing, I hope to create literary works that forge emotional connections with readers. I also want to offer more diverse “mirrors” in my work—stories and characters that allow readers from all backgrounds to see themselves reflected and to connect personally with what they read.

KVT: Well, I look forward to reading your work in the future, and I thank you for taking the time to speak with us.

VB: You’re very welcome!

You can find Victor Benavides on Facebook here.

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Meet Soter Lucio: Grandmother, Ironer, Horror Fiction Writer

Stories are a communal currency of humanity. – Tahir Shah

As Fiction Editor at Story Sanctum Publishing, I have the privilege of reading submissions from around the world. We have featured stories by writers from India, Indonesia, Scotland, Taiwan, and England among others. Through my email correspondence with them, as well as deep dives into their work online, I have broadened my appreciation for Story Sanctum’s diverse family of authors.

Recently, I interviewed Soter Lucio from the Island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. We published her short story The Contract on June 1 of this year. Soter’s background, her chosen genre, and her path to discovering her gift fascinate me.

KVT: Soter, tell me something about your family, past and present.

SL: I have always lived in Trinidad, and my family and ancestors have aways been gardeners. We plant and sell in the market on Fridays and Saturdays. We plant chive, thyme, parsley, and short crops like sweet peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, and ochres. I have four children and six grandchildren, all of whom live on Trinidad.

KVT: The main character of The Contract is a woman who washes clothes along the river. I understand that laundering is a part of your past as well.

SL: I worked as a maid until my girls completed Form 5 so that I could be home in the morning before they left for school and home in the afternoons when they returned. Then I started ironing because we needed more money for university and ironing paid better. That was in 1997. I put advertisements in the newspapers and got enough clients to fill my days. So I ironed from 6.30 am to 8.30 pm, Monday through Saturday, and Sunday between 7 am and 1 pm. I did this from 1997 to 2023. I still iron, but not as much anymore.

KVT: How did you first get interested in writing?

SL: Someone read an essay I’d written in primary school and said, “You know, you could be a writer.” I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know one could even be a writer. Then I read an advertisement in our newspaper about an aptitude test from The Writing School of London. It was a challenge to compose a story based on a photo they supplied. I did. I sent it, passed it, and took their correspondence course. I followed that up with their diploma in writing in 1983. By then I had four children, so writing had to take a backseat until my youngest got her degree in Pharmacy. Then she bought me a laptop and said “Mother go write!”

KVT: Why have you chosen the horror genre?

SL: I think horror chose me. We are from a superstitious community, immersed in a way of life that I now understand to be horror. I grew up with no electricity or indoor plumbing.  I washed and bathed by the river, and I toted water from a spring for all our household duties. Stories about soucouyant, lougaroo, La Diablesse, Papa Bois, and douen were part of our daily fare. Soucouyant are females who suck the blood of women and roll on men in their sleep. Lougaroo shape shift into animals, carrying chains and running about the country scaring people. La Diablesse is a woman who made a deal with the Devil in exchange for eternal beauty. She lures young boys to follow her until they are lost, then she beats them with her razor-sharp hair until they die. Papa Bois protects the animals in the forest. Douen are the babies who die before getting baptized. Stories and characters like these are the root of my horror orientation.

KVT: Wow, those are some scary images to introduce to children. Do you remember an incident from your youth where one of the superstitions seemed to take on a life of its own?

SL: As a child I was told that only devils are in the city. Then, at eleven years old, I passed the Common Entrance Exam for an Intermediate Girl school in Port-of-Spain. I moved there and was scared every day. I was sure my parents hated me because they sent me among the “devils.” I spent my days looking for horns and tails. Where were they hiding them? I never found the answer. I was also told that only devils go to the cinema. When I was about 21 years old, some friends invited me to see a movie. When I got home that night, I actually tried washing away the sin. That shows you how long those superstitions lasted.

KVT: When did you publish your first story? What are some of your writing credits since then?

SL: My first story was published in 2015 by Dark Chapter Press. Then I had others that appeared in Sirens Call Publications, Weird Mask, Wicked Shadow Press, Story Sanctum, and Migla Press.

KVT: If you look back on your work, what is your favorite piece you’ve written?

SL: My favorite is The Last Request of Gladimus McCarran for the simple reason that it was imagined, written, and submitted within a few hours after a long day of ironing.  For me that was quite an accomplishment.  It was published by the now defunct Sirens Call.  A reprint of that story along with others can be found at Metastellar.

KVT: What upcoming projects do you have in the works?

SL: At present, I’m writing a 30,000-word horror novella for Dark Holme Publishing and a short story for Wicked Shadow Press. I’m also attempting a full-length novel that will be based on my life but is not autobiographical.

KVT: Well, I certainly think your fascinating life is worthy of a book. Thanks so much for taking the time to spend with us.

SL: You’re very welcome!

In addition to the links above, you can find Soter on Facebook here.

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Heaven is Now: Adjust Your Vision, Find Balance – Conclusion

If you missed the first parts of this series, you can find them there: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

Conclusion

It should be clear now that this series is about experimenting with our sense of time to find more balance. Many of us, me included, can too easily live our days out of whack. Worry, regret, judgments of ourselves or others, and the unwillingness to surrender our illusion of control can get us off track.

Whatever the origin, we can do something about this suffering. We can develop mental tools and disciplines that lead us to more harmony. 

There are stories, especially in Eastern traditions, which feature spiritual masters who attained a final form of nirvana. Think of the myth of Buddha sitting beneath the Bo Tree. Weary of his endless experiments to achieve enlightenment, he sat down and reportedly said, “Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.” Throughout that night, enshrined in legend, he battled the final illusions that kept him ensnared.

I’m sure such transcendent victories exist. Their ripple effects are undeniable in history. However, in most of our lives the desire (and struggle) to awaken happens in the fray of daily living—while we’re working, caring for our family, or carving out leisure time from our schedules. This is why I resonate with a quote from the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book: What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

Reprieve may sound like a harsh word, meaning the postponement of punishment. But think about it. When our lives are out of balance, it punishes us physically, mentally, and emotionally. A liberating three-dimensional vision of time helps restore balance and release our self-punishment.

Also, the words “our spiritual condition” won’t resonate for some of you. Substitute a word or phrase of your choice. I’ve heard others use “a balanced state of mind,” “emotional equilibrium,” or “my connection to higher self.” Whatever works to bring more balance into your life!

I’m on the email list for Hay House publications, and I receive regular ads about their eBooks for sale. I mean no disrespect to the many authors, but it reminds me of a booklet I cowrote with my friend, Heiwa no Bushi, The Six Medicines of BodhiChristo. The introduction begins with these words.

     A friend and I were recently discussing our favorite inspirational books. He and I are co-explorers, coloring outside the lines of conventional spirituality, testing every truth in the laboratories of our own lives. We had a good belly laugh as we recited the steps, secrets, and keys touted by various writers. So many of these maxims are similar, recycled and refreshed to make them seem trendy.

     In reality, this is age-old wisdom transmitted to us by a myriad of cultures and teachers. The ancient Hebrews called it derek olam, the everlasting way inscribed in our genes since the beginning of time. It is dharma, Tao, the cosmic order, a river wending its way to the ocean and inviting us for a swim.

I hope you know that right now I’m laughing at myself for contributing yet another title to this endless stream of literature. Why do it? Because if there’s a chance that even one person receives some assistance in liberating his/her mind from these posts, it will have been eternally worthwhile.

Please know that I, like you, am a human being in progress. I work every day to get my reprieve, and I assure you, it does get easier!

I close with a string of greetings gleaned from various spiritual traditions around the world. I have used them in many of my books.

Namaste! God bless you! As-salamu alaykum!Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ! May the Force be with you! Keep on truckin’!

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Heaven is Now: Adjust Your Vision, Find Balance – Part Four

If you missed the previous parts of this series, find them here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

The Harmony of Action and Surrender

Here are some adages that summarize this chapter.

Know what to pick up and what to put down.
Do your best, release the rest.
Let go and let God.

Sure, you might think, but no matter how true a saying may be, putting it into practice is the challenge! Balancing action and surrender is an artform that is difficult to master. This is especially true in our world that idolizes willful accomplishments. We consider it a high compliment when someone calls us a “person of action.” Our achievements can take many forms. We may know how to see a problem, analyze its component parts, then choose an effective strategy to solve it. We may write to-do lists on a daily basis and summon the energy to accomplish most of them. We may set goals for our fitness, our business, or our relationships, then work tirelessly to achieve them.

All of this is admirable. Most of us have little patience for people who complain about their lot in life but don’t get off the couch to make a change. Hard work isn’t only effective; it’s also its own reward, shaping our characters and providing an example to others.

But inevitably there’s that still point, that boundary that all of us eventually encounter. We come to the end of what we can control through our willfulness, and our continued efforts only create stress and anxiety. At this critical juncture, if we choose to spin our wheels, we squander a precious opportunity for personal growth.

As one who has benefited over time from a Twelve Step perspective, I hear repeated admonitions to practice acceptance. There’s a seminal passage in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that circulates endlessly through the rooms of recovery.

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake… Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.

It’s easy to see the appeal here. So many of us wrap our lives around the axle by trying to control things outside our purview. It’s another form of addiction, and it undermines our physical and mental health. Instead, when we turn to transforming ourselves, not the world around us, serenity rises like water from an inner aquifer.

Certainly, there are obvious exclusions to this truth.

  • Times when we witness injustice. To accept those moments as “exactly the way they are supposed to be” means to acquiesce, to allow the oppression to proceed unchecked. Choosing to join the struggle for liberation is a heartfelt expression of our compassion and love. In my book, The Smile on a Dog: Retrieving a Faith that Matters, I examine how to do this without perpetuating the vicious cycle of action/reaction. I suggest going to Chapter Five if you’re interested.
  • Times when we mustered the energy to try one more solution to a problem and by going that extra mile, we were successful. Looking back, we know that exercising a final bit of “control” made all the difference.

Despite these exceptions, there’s eternal wisdom in knowing when to surrender. Here is how writer Nancy Collier puts it.     

Surrender happens when…we know that we cannot think or see our way through where we are…All we know is that we can’t do it this way, the way we’ve been doing it, a moment longer. The moment of surrender itself is easy; it happens when it’s ready. Control falls away and takes us with it. It’s the path to surrender that’s excruciating. But what’s amazing is that when surrender does arrive, it’s accompanied by a great sense of ease, relief, and peace. It’s not like the situation remarkably gets better or easier, but we feel better and more easeful when we know in our bones that we cannot fix or figure it out, when we know that it’s truly not up to us, and we simply can’t. In this moment of surrender or grateful defeat, there’s clarity. And oddly, something deep within us relaxes when we acknowledge that we don’t know how to do it, don’t know the way. More effort, more doing, more thinking, more plans won’t work. We feel an inner softening when we agree to turn it over to anything else, whatever is not us, the unknowable, or perhaps to just the truth of not knowing. From our knees, paradoxically, we feel a remission from the suffering.

Sometimes the courage to let go seems almost superhuman. I have seen this (and experienced it!) when we must allow a self-destructive person in our orbit to make their own decisions without intervening on their behalf. Letting go is a nod to the sovereignty of their choices, and it’s essential for our own mental health.

I vividly remember counseling a woman whose young adult daughter was addicted to drugs. The mother had done everything in her power for her child—arranging counseling and multiple stints in rehab, repeatedly showing her love and support on every level possible. Yet, gripped by the disease of addiction, her daughter continued her descent into self-destruction.

The woman tried attending Nar-Anon meetings, which helped somewhat, but she was still struggling when she came to my office. Here’s a version of the conversation we had that day. For the sake of anonymity, I will call the woman Jan and her daughter, Carrie.

“Krin,” said Jan, “I went to a therapist about this, and she diagnosed me as codependent. She claimed that I’m addicted to someone who is also addicted. She says that the root of my suffering is my need to be needed, my own form of obsession.”

“And you don’t buy that?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said with a tinge of anger. “What parent wouldn’t do anything possible to save their child? Even give their own life! This isn’t an addiction. It’s the natural reaction towards my own flesh and blood. I don’t want to look back someday and feel that I didn’t go the extra mile.”

I knew Jan was speaking her truth. I had observed her in other situations, and I always considered her a balanced person. I also knew that now she was killing herself with worry and that she needed to come to the end of what she could control. I empathized deeply with her, drawing upon a similar experience in my own family.

“I hear you,” I said. “Theories are theories. Even with the best counselors, we have to choose what applies to our own lives. Ultimately, we have to face these challenges in ways that make sense to us. And I agree with you. Sometimes comments from people who have no authentic point of reference can seem glib, even dismissive.”

“Exactly,” she said. “I know they all mean well, especially the folks in Nar-Anon, but they still have this disease model about codependency. I’ve never been obsessed with caregiving or trying to control other people in the past. Not in my extended family, not in my marriage, not with my coworkers. It’s just this situation with Carrie.”

I let some silence permeate our session.

“You know some of my story,” I said. “I confronted the same issue. I can only share what I learned in my own life if you want to hear it.”

“Please,” she said. “It’s why I came to see you.”

I took a moment to find the right words and voice tone. “The hardest thing with surrendering in this situation is accepting that the other person might indeed choose death rather than life. The disease of addiction is powerful. Carrie knows you love her. She’s been in rehab. She knows there are tools she can use to stay clean.”

“True,” said Jan, looking down into her lap.

“So, the stark and difficult truth I had to face—which I believe is the same for you—is that we must be willing to surrender to the knowledge that we ultimately have no power to prevent our loved ones from killing themselves. This is not giving into cold defeat. It’s not a dereliction of our duty. It’s a sober realization of reality, and as much as it stings, it’s truth is unavoidable.”

She looked up at me, then down at her lap again, wringing her hands. I’m sure she had heard similar versions of this from others, but as the saying goes, “we get there when we get there.”

Softly, she began to release a torrent of tears. When her eyes met mine again, she nodded, and in that gesture I heard the full force of the well-known Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

We don’t have to be in a dire situation to see how we need a balance of both certainty and surrender in our daily lives. Here are some examples.

  • We’re certain of our love for our family, and we also see our need to accept their longstanding character traits without criticism. After all, they put up with us!
  • We vote, even protest, to make our point in the political arena, but we also learn to let go so that we can sleep in peace at night.
  • We do everything we can for our health, and we also realize that the rest is in the hands of our Creator.
  • We plan for our financial future, and we also realize that our world and its finances are unpredictable.

In one of my short stories entitled Path of the Monarch, a man has a reverie in which a butterfly leads him through fantastical landscapes—a meadow, a desert, and finally up a mountain. There, he encounters his doppelganger whom he calls D. Let’s pick up the story at that point.

     I stared at him sitting in the sunlight. I saw the wrinkles that had formed on his forehead. In his eyes—my eyes—I saw a mix of sadness and resignation, and it pierced my heart.

     “You see it, don’t you?”

     I nodded.

     “Will you do something for me?”

     I nodded again.

     “Tell me—tell yourself—those lessons you know are true but seem unwilling to actualize.”

     The words came faster than I expected, as if an inner treasure chest burst open, every phrase springing into the light.

     “Live in the present,” I said. “Focus on the gifts of each day, rather than regrets or fears. Hold my loved ones close. Practice kindness towards everyone. Do the things that bring me joy. Remember that I will die and seize each day with gratitude.”

     D slid down from the rock and started towards me, stopping a few feet away. He started to clap. “Bravo! No more self-help books! No more gurus! But there’s one more thing, grasshopper, one more piece of advice from yourself to you.”

     I felt stumped. No words came to mind.

     “Let go,” he said. “Let go, let go, let go, until it’s as natural as breathing.”

     He placed his hands on my shoulders and moved so close that our noses were nearly touching.

     “Practice with me,” he said. “Each time we breathe out, whisper let go.”

     We tried it, over and over, the two us inhaling, exhaling, and whispering together.

Practice

Take time today to embody the Serenity Prayer in your life. Bring to mind any current challenges that might be causing stress in your life because you can’t predict the outcomes. Then use the prayer’s suggestions by speaking words like this out loud.

1. I affirm that I have done my best today to change these things that are within my power (name them).
2. I see that the following people, events, and circumstances (name them) are beyond my control.
3. I will rest in the wisdom of knowing what I should pick and what I should put down. I will let go of the rest and let the universe have my back.

As you fuse these aspects of action and surrender into this present moment, remember this:

Heaven is here. There is nowhere else.
Heaven is now. There is no other time.

The conclusion of this series will post on June 19.

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Heaven is Now: Adjust Your Vision, Find Balance – Part Three

If you missed the first two parts of this series, find them here: part one, part two.

The Harmony of Certainty and Mystery

Certainty can be a wonderful thing, galvanizing our will and bringing clarity. It can help us make decisions, set appropriate boundaries, and navigate difficult trials in our lives. Certainty can also be destructive, putting horns on our stubbornness, cementing our biases, and closing us off from the beauty of new perspectives.

In contrast, mystery is an admission to ourselves that we don’t have it all figured out. It leaves our spirit wide open to novel discoveries.

There are many ways I could approach the balance of these two, but let’s focus on what we call religion.

As a cleric for over three decades, part of my weekly task was to write and deliver sermons. In the tradition I formerly followed, this meant using Hebrew and Christian scriptures as a springboard. In retrospect, it pains me to see that my default practice was to traffic in certainties. What was my purpose, I reasoned, if I didn’t send people home from Sunday worship with principles for their lives?

Let me be clear. Certain truths from the aforementioned scriptures are eternal and, to me, indispensable for our human journeys. Here are just a few, voiced by prophets, evangelists, and Jesus himself.

  • Do not return evil for evil.
  • Love your neighbor as yourself.
  • Have compassion for all human beings, including the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, and the stranger.
  • Focus on your own shortcomings rather than those of others.
  • Realize that you can have all the accoutrements of this world, but if you don’t have love, you have missed life’s greatest treasure.
  • Don’t worry, for it can’t add a single meaningful hour to your life.

No matter what you believe about spiritual matters, surely you agree that these guidelines could help all of us fashion a kinder, more inclusive planet. My point, once again, is that certainty can be helpful if it shapes us into mature human beings.

However, staying with this topic of religion, let’s shift to how certainty can also wreak havoc. Here are just a few of the ways.

  • Believing that our version of truth must be adopted by all people for their “salvation.”
  • Clinging to anthropomorphic images of a deity.
  • Citing scripture from our chosen tradition to undergird homophobia, misogyny, or nationalism.
  • Adopting a sense of superiority over others because of our beliefs.

These are toxic fallouts when one’s certitude becomes fossilized into consciousness, unmoving and impermeable.

Mystery, an acknowledgment that there is more out there than we ever imagined, can crack this bias. In one of my former books, Invitation to the Overview, I wrote about an image that still turns my thoughts from certainty to mystery. Here it is.

Among our galaxy’s billions of stars, I know there are other marvels, dramatically evident in Hubble Telescope photos. That unique instrument allows the absorption of light which has traveled for countless light years. In a particular picture, its focus was a tiny spot about the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. What did it discover? Not just thousands of previously uncharted stars, but many new galaxies, some of them grander than our own. To coin an old hippie phrase: doesn’t that blow your mind?

In his Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, the late James Fowler gave a name to the highest level of spiritual maturation in his theory. He called it Universalizing Faith. This is when we are no longer hemmed in by differences in religious or spiritual beliefs. We learn to see beauty in the images and myths that others hold sacred. We adopt the truths that are helpful for us and leave the rest. We regard all human beings as worthy of compassion and deep understanding. 

Can you imagine a world where this is the norm, supplanting our divisive violence?

In another of my books, The Smile on a Dog: Retrieving a Faith That Matters, I invited people from diverse walks of life to share how their spiritual perspective had evolved over time. One of them is an esteemed colleague named Rebecca Blackwell. I realize this is from a Christian perspective, but I believe the truths are applicable to all of us. Here is what she said (in italics).

For the last 52 years, I’ve been on a journey that took me from the solid ground of Christian Fundamentalism to the misty mountaintops of whatever kind of Christian I am now.

The journey has required that I leave some things behind on the trail. I had to let go of certainty, fear, and shame. As my load lightened, I discovered a deep freedom, a peace that passes all understanding, a closer connection with God/The Sacred and the confidence that nothing can separate me from the love of God that permeates the cosmos.

I took the first step on this journey in 1972 when, at age 18, I walked away from the church I grew up in. I could no longer abide their sexism, patriarchy, narrow-mindedness and fear-based way of life. Since they taught me that they were the One True Church and the God they proclaimed was the One True God, that left me with nowhere to go. So, I did not affiliate with any church.

About ten years into my exodus, I began to notice that even though I had left “church,” I was still praying (though not in a hands-folded, head-bowed kind of way), and I was missing a spiritual community. Could it be that God was bigger than I had been led to believe? I took what felt like a huge risk and began exploring other churches.

The willingness to explore and to say “maybe” to new experiences or ideas, and to trust my instincts and intuition (which I believe are the way Spirit speaks to us), have been key to this journey. I said “maybe” and then “yes” to the Presbyterian Church (USA); I said “maybe” and then “yes” to the Charismatic movement. I said “maybe” and then “yes” to seminary and ordination in the PC(USA); I said “maybe” and then “yes” to yoga, meditation, Reiki and other practices. I said “maybe” and then “yes” to seeing God at work in the deep dimensions of other faiths.

With each exploration that resulted in “yes” (and not all of them did), my heart grew more expansive, my faith more inclusive. So, where am I today? I consider myself a Christian, though I hold few of the traditional doctrines (heaven, hell, penal substitutionary atonement and others are gone), and the doctrines I do hold have been significantly re-shaped. My conviction is that the Mystery at the heart of the universe is infinitely knowable through a variety of means. The Bible (especially the stories of Jesus) is the organizing narrative for wrapping my head and heart around this Mystery, and so I call this Mystery “God” and “Christ.”

Should you be on a spiritual journey of your own, I offer the following aphorisms and suggestions in the hope that they will help you.

  • Faith is a journey, not a trip. There is no precise road map, no timetable, no certain destination…the journey IS the destination.
  • Hold everything lightly.
  • Don’t confuse God with any church or religious institution.
  • Your convictions don’t have to make sense or be logical/systematic to be true. Embracing paradox is the heart of wisdom.
  • Read and study widely…history, spiritual biographies, theology, faith stories, poetry, and great literature.
  • Find some traveling companions, including people of different faiths or no faith at all; people who will talk, walk, think, and sit with you. A good Spiritual Director is an invaluable traveling companion.
  • Trust your inner wisdom, no matter where and how it leads you…it is the voice of the Spirit.

Learning to balance certainty and mystery is not just about spiritual development. It impinges on every aspect of our daily lives. Here are just a few, and I’m sure you could offer others from your life.

  • Learning in our marriages to balance what we know of our spouses with the mystery of who they are becoming.
  • Parenting with a grasp of good child rearing practices, while still respecting that our children have unique destines far outside our imaginations.
  • Being open in our vocations to a balance of training with updated knowledge.

It’s a beautiful thing when you witness someone surrendering to the realization of mystery or uncertainty. Here’s another episode from my long and winding career.

I was teaching a class on parenting using a curriculum I thought was helpful. The participants were a varied group of individuals who shared a desire to raise their children with the best practices available.

Among the attendees was an active-duty Army colonel stationed at a nearby base. He was “squared away” as they say in the military. Everything about him was tightly buttoned, including his opinions about our subject material. He had an answer for every aspect of parenting, citing his success in raising three children who excelled in both academics and sports.

Frankly, I wondered why he was there. Did his ego need to hold court and garner admiration? Then, slowly, I saw the cracks emerge, primarily through comments made by his wife who was also part of the course. She alluded to friction between her husband and their oldest son, a boy who would soon leave the family nest and go off to college. When she spoke, you could see the stiffness in her husband, as if he wanted to silence her but was afraid to make a scene.

In the final session of our time together, we took turns summarizing the high points of what we had learned. I was deeply gratified as I heard each person’s reflections, confident that the study aids and our shared experience would create healthier families.

When it came time for the colonel to share, he was uncharacteristically quiet. Then, unexpectedly, his face began to quiver with emotion.

“I’ve learned…” he tried to speak, emotion overcoming his words. He gathered himself to start over, like a soldier trying to come to attention. “’I’ve learned that you can have all the answers and still not know how to fully love someone.”

At that point, he began to shake as he broke down in tears. It’s hard to describe what happened next. It was as if an inner tension held by our entire group found its release. Numerous people got up to surround the colonel and lovingly placed their hands on his shoulders. I expected him to rebuff their gestures with his usual self-assurance. Instead, he placed his own hands on theirs with gratitude.

In that moment I thought of a beautiful verse from the Christian New Testament. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:2)

 I’ll never know what ultimately happened to the colonel and his family, especially in parenting his oldest son. But I like to think that his newfound openness and vulnerability birthed a healing season in their relationship.

Practice

Take time today to practice the suggestions in this chapter. Sit and draw to mind some of the truths you hold dear, the lessons you’ve learned that have the weight of certainty. Bring an appreciation for them into the present. Then allow a non-fearful sense of mystery about what you might learn in the future be equally present. Please remember that even though doubt is useful, it is often accompanied by fear. The mystery we are talking about is not a manifestation of doubt. It’s a benign realization that there is more fullness, more joy, more fascination yet to be discovered in your life.

Here are some affirmations you can repeat.

  1. I have learned some beautiful truths from my faith and life experience (name them here).
  2. Alongside these certainties, I celebrate that the universe still has so much to teach me, new knowledge that will enrich my life. This unknown is beckoning me with its warm embrace.

As you fuse these aspects of certainty and mystery into this present moment, remember this:

Heaven is here. There is nowhere else.
Heaven is now. There is no other time.

Part four of this series will post on June 15

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