Confronting Memories My son Gabriel was a Thanksgiving baby. His birthday didn’t fall on the actual holiday until his second birthday, but it does every four years, including the year he died by suicide, 2008. The association between his birthday and our most heartwarming holiday presents both challenges and opportunities for getting through what has become, for me, an emotionally fraught month. When the leaves begin to change color and the air begins to bite, I start wrestling with memories of baking Turkey shaped shortbread cookies for his school celebrations and his favorite apple pie for …

What is there to be said about the mass murder of 76 people in Norway last week that hasn’t already been said in response to every other tragedy of this sort? We are once again horrified, terrified and shaken to learn that such evil dwells in the hearts of men and can be perpetrated so easily against ordinary people, even children.But this act of violence is different in that it has American journalists, religion scholars, and political pundits debating whether or not the confessed killer is a Christian, as he asserts (or doesn’t, depending on who you ask and what your definition of a …

I have a confession. Lent was a bust.  Instead of having my priorities adjusted by the bodily disciplines of a 40-day fast, I succumbed to the demands of my schedule and felt like it was an accomplishment if I managed to abstain from meat on Fridays. I failed to do even that on Good Friday. My spiritual reading didn't go much better. The Lenten devotional booklet I picked up at All Saints Episcopal Church in Bay Head on Ash Wednesday sat mostly neglected on a shelf.  I did read a book late in the season that reminded me it isn't only work that orders my days. It's chickens who must be tended …

The idea of a vocation retreat sounds like a contradiction in terms, but at Laity Lodge in the hill country outside San Antonio, Texas, these concepts are as intertwined as the branches of a gnarly old oak.  I was there last weekend in my role as leadership editor of TheHighCalling.org to listen as highly accomplished business and nonprofit leaders grappled with the challenges of living out their vocational callings.  I've offered here some words that probably should be explained, beginning with vocation, retreat and calling.  We often think of vocation in terms of our jobs, but Laity …

What do a Congressman, a documentary about Nazi filmmakers, and a 10-time Emmy Award winning director have in common? A discussion about propaganda and human rights, of course! Evil Through the Eye of the Lens, an event held at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Monmouth County in Deal Monday night,  combined a 100-minute subtitled documentary about Nazi filmmaker Veit Harlan, a talk on the difference between propaganda and art by acclaimed filmmaker David Grubin, and humanitarian awards for United States Congressman Christopher Smith and executive director of the New Jersey Commission on…

I married into a musical family. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have been playing in bands at local clubs for some 30 years. So when they began telling me about a 12-year-old guitar prodigy from Point Pleasant that they'd been working with, I didn't think much of it, until I heard them all play together Friday night at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park.  It was a launch party for Little Jimmy and The Midnight Son's first CD. Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux sings backup vocals on the CD, and two members of her band played Friday night.  "I've been into the Grateful Dead all my life…

Monday, March 28 will mark the third anniversary of my son Gabriel's death by suicide. Instead of wallowing in the grief that continues to haunt my life, I've decided to walk it off this year.  Not literally, of course, because one doesn't shake this kind of loss, but in real ways that do me and others good I am walking off the stigma and ignorance that suicide inspires.   Right now I'm in training. Come June, I'll join thousands of other suicide survivors to walk 18 miles from dusk until dawn at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's annual Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk.   As …

Regional Perinatal Consortium of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (RPCMOC) health educator Amy Goldberg mailed 600 fliers to local religious organizations offering her program on pregnancy related emotional wellness. One person responded.  That person was Rachel McKibben, director of youth and family ministries at Trinity Episcopal Church in Red Bank. For McKibben, the flier didn't just represent another ministry opportunity; it was a highly personal invitation to do something about an issue that has shaped her own life. McKibben is one of a tiny percentage of women who have experienced Postpartum…

Because my spiritual heritage is mostly "low-church" evangelical, I've needed a refresher course on Lent every year since I was confirmed as an Anglican in 2007. This year is no different.  I know Lent is supposed to be a season of penance as I prepare to remember the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, but I don't recall much more than that. Christianity Today co-managing editor Ted Olsen had a similar problem in 2004, so he did some research and wrote about the history of Lent for Christian History magazine. Olsen traced the season's origin back to church father Irenaus of Lyons (c.…

Long before MTV popularized a negative caricature of the Jersey Shore with its Seaside Heights reality show, a fourth-grade teacher from Belford was worried about what kind of community his three young children would grow up in.  Robert Talmage took that worry and turned it into a lament that he e-mailed to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). He really didn't expect a response.  "I was more opining than I was anything else," Talmage said with a laugh. "It's just funny how one thing led to the next. They actually got back to me." It was the summer of 2007 when BGEA Development …