The Pandemic Lens^™

My wife Cathy and I live in a subdivision called Margie’s Cove, where we have close friendships with a number of our neighbors. All through the spring and summer and now in a stretch of warm autumn temperatures, we’ve been able to gather on patios and in backyards, observing a social distance of course, just…

People have been responding to pandemics for centuries with fear, panic, avoidance, blame, uncertainty, and confusion. How did our ancestors get through? How do we carry on through the COVID-19 pandemic? Lately, I’ve been compelled to read stories about how others have survived something. The circumstances are less important to me than how they got…

I teach in a suburban high school. Our town decided to go with the Hybrid Model, but did not commit to the decision until mid-August, which left little time to make things happen: schedule 1800 students, reconfigure the building and solidify course re-planning. Kids arrived physically on 16 September. Since then this is what is…

The pandemic and this year’s relentless stream of scarier-than-any-true-crime news is doing strange things to many of us. I had two dogs when it started. Now I have three. Desperate times call for desperate measures is what I’m telling people. This new dog was irresistible—as a puppy, she’s almost embarrassingly cute, Hallmarkian in a way…

After spending two decades facilitating dialogues for some of the world’s most intractable conflicts (Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sri Lanka, US/Cuba, Libya to name a few), one day I had the startling realization that I might have uncovered a missing link in my understanding of conflict. Why was it that parties could not sign on…

Deadlines don’t care about pandemics, but it’s very challenging to craft a novel when the dumpster fire that is 2020 is more consuming than any work of fiction could ever be. This year is full of tangled storylines, confusing subplots, and conflicts that never get resolved. As @mia_sade’s viral post pointed out, “So many plot…

Look around.  The signs are everywhere—lives lost and transformed in the year of the pandemic. One doesn’t need to be a psychologist to see the widespread effects of COVID-19 on our collective psyche. Losses are everywhere; grief is thick.    As mental health professionals, however, we have a unique perspective on how the pandemic impacts people.…

I learned at an early age how to be alone. I had no choice; I was an only child. I grew up on a farm in southeastern Illinois, so I spent countless hours entertaining myself. On occasion, children from a nearby farm would come to visit, but for the most part I was left to…