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Jesus: Child Refugee on the Run
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt. Matthew 2:13-14 That Jesus spent a good part of his childhood as a refugee wrenches my heart. I remember taking a train from Georgia to Los Angeles with my four girls as we fled my ex-husband. My youngest wasn’t yet six months. I tried to…
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The Anchorage Earthquake: A Lesson in Aftershocks
The Anchorage earthquake of 2018 wasn’t my first rodeo, though it felt like it. I remember the Northridge quake decades ago while I was in college. I lived too far away to feel much except a jolt as I walked through the apartments at the University of California, Irvine. I remember the pictures, of course. Broken bridges and crumpled asphalt roads shock the eye and alarm the heart, even if one isn’t personally affected. But this one frightened me. I should say terrified. I realize now that I have never been properly terrified. The car accidents I have been in, even a severe one, started and stopped too quickly to…
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Deflection: How to Spot and Stop It
Deflection is a go-to defense mechanism that started in the Garden of Eden. Adam deflected onto Eve and Eve onto the snake. I’m not the bad guy here. He or she is the bad guy! In order to avoid unpleasant emotions or realities in our lives, we distract ourselves and others from the source of the difficulty. We change the conversation to something else entirely. For some of us, being thought of as the bad guy is the worst fate possible. Anyone with children sees this in action daily. If Mommy reprimands Jimmy for hitting his brother, Jimmy will use deflection to draw the attention from himself. Mommy, but Billy…
Healing Through Art & Words
