…New Year’s Resolution Day falls on January 17th. We know that the vast majority of people will not keep their resolutions: in fact, a study from Sundried.com found that 43% of people begin the year already anticipating that they will give up by the end of the month. Many people decide to give up altogether, resigned that things cannot and will never change. In many ways, the phenomenon of New Year’s resolutions reflects the larger process of change we experience as humans. Even though we have a desire to grow,…

…direction. What are we doing here and why are we doing it and what’s the value here? Is it just satisfaction? Is that all I’m looking for, or is there some deeper meaning? I think it’s essential that we have a way to talk about these existential questions in the client’s language and from their perspective—honoring the importance of communities, religious communities, for example. And for me, there is something more, something that comes from my core, from my own Christian understanding. And that is that there is a promise….

…are finite; the planet is increasingly inhospitable; and the stability of our institutions cannot be taken for granted. A Christian response over the centuries has been, after Ash Wednesday, to enter into a season of preparation and reflection in anticipation of Easter. This time of preparation, the season of Lent, is an invitation to “get real.” The logic of it goes something like this: If Easter is to be an occasion of deliverance for us, from the consequences of our own failings—personal, national, global—then we must see unblinkingly and then…

…exploring something interesting and important. New information that is coming from a different perspective echoes something I’ve heard before. In different language, a different setting, perhaps, but a kind of intersection of similar messages. For example, right now—as I puzzle over how to live in this world of 2022—I’m standing in the intersection of a succession of voices… Brooks, Oliver, Niebuhr, Stockdale, and Kimmerer. In a recent PBS Newshour, David Brooks spoke of this time as “an atmosphere of menace.” That helped explain the heaviness, the dread, that I feel…

…to providing substantial access for the region. Our Board of Directors and staff will soon gather to imagine and plan for our future, a future funded in part by the gift of the property by the Presbytery. In the midst of this planning, we know one thing for certain: We know that we will continue to offer spiritually-integrated mental health services with a commitment to affordability for all who reach out to us. This pledge is the core of our agency. In the words of our founder, Rev. Neal Kuyper,…