There are mornings when the lower back wakes us before the first cup of coffee has a chance to help. Most of us treat these moments as minor irritations—one more reminder that the body is no longer as forgiving as it once was. And yet, every so
What an ancient Jewish teaching suggests about faith, change, and seeing what was there all along In the Jewish tradition, there is a passage in the Talmud, a collection of ancient teachings and discussions, that describes Moses watching the Torah as it is being written. He
Inner work in later life doesn’t usually begin with a decision. It shows up in small moments—a reaction that lingers, a thought that returns, a feeling that doesn’t quite pass. Not everything that unsettles us is meant to be solved. Some things are meant to be
Forgive me at the outset. I like puns. Years ago, my best friend’s mother would say they were the lowest form of humor. We disagreed. A good pun, if it holds, does more than play with words. It carries two meanings at once and lets them
What success can hide—and what keeps a life open There is a particular risk that comes with success. Not failure. Not struggle. Success. When things go well long enough, something begins to change. People listen more closely. They defer. They assume you know what you’re doing—not
Last week we reflected on katabasis—the descent. The Greeks paired that word with another: anabasis, a going up. Not a return to the way things were, but a movement into something that follows. After a difficult stretch of life, there are times when a person begins
There comes a point in life when growth no longer means adding more—more knowledge, more roles, more certainty. Instead, growth begins to look like gathering. Experiences once held apart—joy and grief, faith and doubt, strength and vulnerability—start asking to be held together. Not resolved. Integrated. Across wisdom traditions,
In the first half of life, much of our energy goes outward. We build. We prove. We establish roles that help us survive and belong. We learn what is expected of us—and, often without realizing it, we learn how to meet those expectations well. For many
The reflection we shared on Sunday—10,000 Ways—spoke of something easy to overlook: that a community is not made of sameness, but of differences, embraced with care. Ten thousand readers does not mean one voice multiplied. It means ten thousand lives—each shaped by particular joys, losses, questions,
A response to “The Shadow of Fear: Why Men Go Missing in Spiritual Conversations.” When we published our article on men and their fears, it struck a chord. Among the responses was one that felt deeply personal yet broadly representative of what many wrestle with in