Some years ago, there was a period in my life when everything was going beautifully. I was busy and active, but never overly stressed. During those days, I felt at the height of my creative powers, like I was growing in every way. And here was the amazing thing: every...

The Quakers have a wonderful saying: “When you pray, move your feet.” But what do you do if you have no feet?

Our backyard is a kaleidoscope of birds. Ana adores them and loves to keep them happily fed throughout the winter. Yesterday, we lost one. I was at my desk, writing, when I caught a split-second flurry of motion out of the corner of my eye, followed by a loud whump!...

Last week Ana and I had the opportunity to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. If Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love, its neighbor to the south is often seen as the city where brother gets along with brother … well, like Cain and Abel. Yet...

A while back I wrote about the Law of Left Field, which describes how things and events of great value come to you suddenly and from places you never expected. “Out of left field,” as the expression goes. Here is an example of that, and of how powerful it can be when...

This is the toughest part. Last summer I worked on an amazing book project, a memoir of a well-known public figure who struggled privately for decades with addiction and alcoholism, even as he lived publicly in the limelight of television and politics, and who...

It’s strangely comforting to know that the oak of who we will become is already packed into the acorn of who we are, and always has been.

Reading the novelist John Irving’s memoir The Imaginary Girlfriend, I recently came upon this passage, which seems to me to speak volumes about the business of facing the infinite possibilities of a new year or, for that matter, each new day: The wonderful and...

This time of year, with the advent of Christmas approaching, I think about infants and the state of being childlike. Put aside the specific religious associations for the moment: the celebration of nativity seems to stir something inside, something primal, mysterious,...

Every week Barnes and Noble emails out a newsletter called Review that almost always features tidbits that catch my interest. This week’s edition included a piece entitled “Words of the Year: The Best Things They Read in 2014.” The question they posed to their panel...