by David Anderson
Sometimes it seems that everyone we know is struggling. Right now, many people in my life are undergoing suffering, and I’m especially attuned to it because in the past year I’ve dealt with periods of frightful anxiety and then dips of depression. So now, when I am listening to other people’s pain, I am drawing […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Fear, Freedom, Grace, Happiness, Joy, Suffering, Surrender, Transformation
It was a small procedure, but even “minor” surgery requires general anesthesia, intubation, and signing a form that says if you die in there it’s not like they didn’t warn you. I walked into the OR in my johnny coat, an IV dripping in my arm, and there before me was a narrow operating table […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Grace, Healing, Mercy, Now/ the Present, Suffering, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
On this Good Friday, here is a poem and a song. A PRAYER TO THE GOD WHO FELL FROM HEAVEN by John Shea If you had stayedtightfisted in the skyand watched us thrashwith all the patience of a pipe smoker,I would pray like a golden bulletaimed at your heart.But the story says you criedand so […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Grace, Lent, Love, Mercy, Suffering, Surrender
On Saturdays our companions are musicians. I don’t remember when I first heard Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now,” but it went straight to my heart. I couldn’t tell what emotion the music was pressing on, but it felt deep and huge. It’s the only song about mercy I’ve ever heard—plenty on forgiveness, but not the depths […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Healing, Lent, Mercy, Music, Suffering, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
just schooled the Messiah. She came out of the crowd, a Canaanite, begging Jesus to heal her daughter afflicted by a demon. The disciples tell Jesus to get her out of here, “for she is crying after us.” At first Jesus tries to dodge the whole scene. “I was sent only to the lost sheep […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Change, Forgiveness, Lent, Suffering, Uncategorized
was dying not of her hemorrhages but of her deadly isolation. Here’s her story. “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she has spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her” (Luke 8: 43-48). Almost certainly this patient was suffering from menorrhagia, excessively […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Community, Faith in Action, Faith/Trust, Healing, Lent, Suffering
“We’re going in circles! We’re going in circles!” That was the sing-song cry from the backseat when our kids were young and we were lost, trying to follow directions, turning, turning and ending up back where we started. Not long ago I was suffering through a difficult passage. Fears I thought I’d dealt with were […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, Discernment, Hope, Suffering, Transformation
Our granddog is sick. Almost a year ago, Eloise was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and underwent radiation therapy. The tumor shrank and her seizures could be controlled with medication. My daughter Sharon and her husband Anthony hoped their beloved French Bulldog, now seven years old, might make it to eight or nine. This […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Death/Dying, Healing, Mystery, Suffering