June 10, 2025

Stay Angry

I think the word anger gets a bad rap. Anger is a feeling, not an action. Sure, aggression or hostility can emerge from anger, but anger itself is a motivating emotion. The American Psychological Association defines anger as “an emotion characterized by tension and hostility arising from frustration, real or imagined injury by another, or perceived injustice”. The danger in suppressing anger is acceptance, or passivity, to the injustice; tolerance or numbness to the threat. The issue is not anger...

April 28, 2025

80 Years to Build, 100 Days to Wreck

There is just sheer exhaustion in being an American right now. Every day, there is another barrage of confusing, inexplicable, deeply hurtful news. Deportation without due process. The indiscriminate gutting of essential services like monitoring food safety, cancer research, and weather monitoring. Erasing Black American history and women’s history. Threatening judges and law firms. Employing economic tactics that experts around the globe agree are hurting Americans and people all over the world. Turning our backs on Ukraine. Insulting and breaking...

February 22, 2025

How Did You Get Here?

I have a special and treasured relationship with my 87-year-old uncle. To most of the world, he’s Father Dennet, a Franciscan priest. But to our family, to me, he’s Uncle Joe. I don’t get to see him often, but he makes a point of calling me every few weeks. And I drop everything and take his call no matter what I’m doing. He’s not a stuffy priest. He is the most welcoming, accepting, kind man I know. He is the...

December 21, 2024

We Should Stop Asking This Question

Scroll back through your calendar or planner to 2015. Where were you? What were you doing? And if 2025-you asked 2015-you where you saw yourself, and what you wanted to be doing…are you doing it? My money is on…no. You are not. And that’s not a bad thing at all. I just think we are asking ourselves, and each other, the wrong question; dare I say, a dumb question. Recently, I have decided to stop asking myself and those who...

October 27, 2024

On The Record

Position Piece: A statement that outlines a position on a debatable issue. Persuasive Piece: A work written that tries to convince the reader of the writer’s opinion. Instructions to the reader: The following is a position piece. The reader is encouraged to consider the position as a way to understand better and appreciate the writer. To fully appreciate the piece, it is suggested that the reader refrain from attempts to argue the position presented. First: what I believe, my creed....

September 8, 2024

Nuance

For weeks, I have been trying to get my thoughts together to write a blog. But my head has been swirling. I can’t seem to keep up, even with voracious reading and podcast listening. I am in the middle of three books, a dozen podcasts I follow religiously, a daily review of news sites, and a Netflix documentary series. It’s exhausting and there is so much coming at us. Emotions are high all around us with the US Election, the...

July 7, 2024

How Do We Respond?

It seems like hardly a day goes by that I don’t find myself shocked and saddened by yet another story on Christian Nationalism, a Supreme Court ruling, or the antics of Donald Trump. Through my (self-admitted) steady diet of social media, podcasts, and liberal-leaning news, I am always consuming another story about threats to democracy and the scary arc toward fascism. All too often, I find myself anxious and defensive. Just as so many do, I frequently want to respond...

June 4, 2024

Kindness is Free…

Are you tired? Cause I’m tired. Downright exhausted. A few minutes on social media is a wild ride of vitriol. A few minutes on the news provides enough horror and sadness to leave anyone depressed for days. And all of politics leaves me feeling nauseated. I’m not only exhausted by the overall content and tone of all of the attacks and comments, I am so deeply sad. Sad because the faith that I grew up with has been co-opted into...

May 16, 2024

If It Doesn’t Look Like Jesus…

I sat on the small sofa across from my therapist, a former pastor who left the church to become a counselor, and explained my heartache with organized religion and my experience with the church. The church we left had disappointed me with their response during COVID (holding large gatherings at the peak of the second wave and declining to encourage mask use); their refusal to allow women in leadership/pastoral roles; and their viewpoint on LGBTQ issues. Broader than that was...

March 17, 2024

‘Not Very Lady-Like’

“Dr. Hartwell…”, he said. “Your behavior yesterday was not very ‘lady-like'”. I heard those words nearly 15 years ago as a chief resident, from a senior (male) surgeon, the patriarch of the program, who had pulled me aside after an educational conference, specifically to reprimand me for comments I made the day prior, in defense of a junior resident who had been asked to perform duties outside of her scope of training. I admit that my frustration about the situation...