Tom Adams
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This week’s post is about slowing down during the summer. I offer some reflections on the gifts and challenges I’ve experienced. I will continue to “practice” during August, including taking a break from posting Critical Conversations. My next post will appear on September 8.
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a continuation of a series of reflections on America’s 250-year celebration and its meaning and call to action. Stef McGuire, a North Carolina advocate transplanted from Connecticut, shares how she spent the 4th and why it reinforced her...
Editor’s Note: This week’s post continues exploration of America at 250 and its meaning and invitations. Greg Cantori, a friend who has moved to Spain and shared other posts on life there with us, offers an interesting perspective on America at 250 and our connection...
I’ve always been fascinated by tree trimmers. As a boy, I watched with awe as they skillfully trimmed a high branch or took down a huge tree. My first career ambition was to be a guy high up in the tree with a hard hat on and a chain saw hanging from my belt.
After one bout at the “UFC Freedom 250” – an event held on the lawn of the White House as part of the 250th celebration – an invited fighter gleefully shouted into the waiting microphone “..Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?”
I’m over 70 now—a woman for more than 30 years, a Catholic for over 20, and married to a Catholic woman for nearly 50. I’ve had time to reflect, to pray, and I’ve been given more gifts of faith than I ever expected. I came to religion with no childhood training at all. As a queer Catholic, that absence was a quiet blessing.
I recently went up to the mountains of Colorado for some retreat time. The first morning I was there, I found myself thinking about the word retreat, which I’ve reflected on before. We retreat from work, or volunteer duties, or doing our part for tikkun olam (repairing the world), with the goal of getting closer to God.
I was doing my best to ignore all the Trump hype about America’s 250th anniversary. His celebration isn’t mine. So, I figured I would sit this one out and pretend it wasn’t happening. The arrival of a Special Issue of Sojourners magazine gave me a different and healthier way to approach this important landmark. Today’s post reflects on the 250th and possible responses.
This week’s post is about the gift of faith and how it widens and deepens as I get older. We all have faith in something. Otherwise, it would be hard to go on in a world filled with uncertainty and evil.
I am coming to the end of leading two weekly book discussion groups of A Marriage that Changed the World: Lois and Bill Wilson and the Addiction Recovery Movement. For over three months I’ve been meeting with one group on Sunday morning and another on Monday morning, one in person and one on zoom. As we read Chapters 18 and 19 about Bill and Lois’ final years this past week, I was moved to tears several times.
Tom Adams writes and speaks on topics vital to the intersection of our personal lives with our community and global lives. He has for decades been engaged in and written about nonprofit leadership and transitions, spirituality and spiritual growth, how we each contribute to a more just and equitable world and recovery from addictions and the Twelve Step recovery movement.