AvengersWhen you think “blockbuster movie” and “superheroes”, I bet “fear” isn’t the next word in your mind.  But if the major motion picture in question is the recent “Avengers: Age of Ultron” then you might have to think again.  I do enjoy a good Marvel movie, and I was intrigued at the direct way in which this one portrayed the characters’ struggle with fear as the lynchpin of the proceedings.

After all, fear is a primal emotion.  Ability to feel fear is essential to survival, and fear prepares us for action faster than we can consciously think.  At the same time, fear can keep us trapped, immobilized both physiologically and psychologically.  All of us have fear, and we are never safe out of its reach. (You may have heard that “Perfect love casts out fear.”  Know any perfect lovers?)  What can we take from this ultra-popular film that will inform our own, personal struggle with fear? Read More →

A few weeks ago I was wandering around the house engaged in some task (which I can’t recall now), when I had that unsettling, terrifying feeling…the 3-year-old is not making any noise! Upon reflection I’ve realized that I tend to unconsciously keep track of him by the distant sounds of “Vroom, vroom” or other various forms of screeching, laughing, and/or crying. But silence. Silence means that he is into something he shouldn’t be! He’s quiet when he is in the bathroom putting his toothbrush in the toilet bowl or squeezing all of the toothpaste into the sink while running the faucet water perpetually. Silence with a toddler screams trouble.

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