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Beyond Blue

The most meaningful religious holiday for me doesn’t involve a fat, jolly man sliding down a chimney, or a life-size rabbit hiding baskets of jellybeans. It’s a feast that usually gets overshadowed by Memorial Day picnics and graduation parties. The Pentecost (Greek for “the fiftieth day”–after Easter, that is) is the birthday of the Church,…

I will be discussing my interpretation of the Pentecost on Sirius radio, on the Catholic Channel, Tuesday morning at 6:40 a.m. If you’re up, tune in! Thanks to reader Wayde who said he tuned in last time!

What is the worst possible question you could ask a woman with a history of an eating disorder (or any female, but especially a female with body-image issues)? I’ll give you a hint—it’s three words long and ends with an eight-lettered word: “Are you pregnant?” My mom taught me as a young girl to never,…

When Ed is around, my brain abandons all logic and thinks like this: If the Chinese government won’t allow anyone with a BMI of over 40 to adopt their babies, then I should be less than half of that. Preferable 18 or under. (Although, given that I take two kinds of antidepressants plus a mood…

Read Susan Karas’s wonderful piece, “The Un-Diet,” on how she overcame her self-consciousness about her weight by clicking here.

Albert Camus once said, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” And Carl Jung said, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” During the year of my depression, I would have replied, “Please shoot me then, because I never asked to be alert.” But I do believe I’m a stronger person today than I…

I found this beautiful excerpt on butterflies from “Zorba the Greek” by Nikos Kazantzakis: I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and…

Depression is a lot like childbirth. Once you’ve climbed out of the Black Hole (i.e. are holding your newborn in your arms) you forget (at least temporarily) about all the cursing you did during the labor that got you there. In my mood journal (which is the most important thing I do each day), I…

I laughed out loud when I read reader Tammy’s remark on my “Gretchen Rubin: How Do You Move Beyond Blue?” post: “I know that God will not give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” My deacon friend said something similar to me one morning over coffee.…

I think God wants us to get mad at him. It means we’re in a living, normal relationship with him. Catholic author Ronald Rolheiser goes so far to say that wrestling with God is a form of prayer. In his book, “Forgotten Among the Lilies,” he writes this: God wants to be wrestled with. As…
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