Mental Health
When Ideas Matter
When Ideas Matter: Speeches for an Ethical Republic is a collection of essays published by Michael D. Higgins, who has served as President of Ireland since November 2011. Higgins covers a broad spectrum of topics ranging from the Irish Diaspora and the Famine, to Culture, Economics, and an especially poignant...
The Millennial Crisis
The young Soldiers I first counseled as an Army Chaplain are in their 40’s by now. In the early 2000’s, our discussions revolved around topics with a distinctive future trajectory. Things like marriage or divorce, children, whether to stay in the Army or return to civilian life. Undoubtedly, the future...
Reflecting On Time
After the birth of my son, my view of time was transformed. My son was born a healthy, happy baby, or so we thought at the time. We learned that he was born with a very rare genetic disorder called Hutchinson-Guilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), often referred to as “Progeria”, for...
Doing the Brain Health Dishes
Originally published January 27, 2019 in the Cedar Rapids Gazette & the Waverly Newspapers In her Condition of the State message, Gov. Kim Reynolds noted that Iowa has invested significant resources since a 2013 redesign of mental health services and will continue to do more this year with the creation of...
Windshield Time
I like to drive. Even more specifically, I like to drive my car without the radio on. In what I know is a sure sign of some shortcoming, I even pay for a Sirius satellite subscription—which I rarely use. When I was a much younger man attending theological seminary in...
Cultural Oxygen
Our children are breathing toxic air. I’m not talking about air from pollution. I am talking about cultural oxygen. Peggy Noonan, one of the most thoughtful public intellectuals in our society today, makes precisely this point when she notes that “…a nation has an atmosphere. It has air it breathes...
Iowa’s Failure To Address Mental Health
This post, titled; "Iowa's failure to address mental health affects more than jails", was published on September 19th in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Erin Murphy’s recent story (“Iowa sheriffs at the front lines of mental health crisis”) does an excellent job of defining part of the tragic shortcomings of...
Looking Forward: Leading Beyond Your Lifetime
I recently travelled to Italy with two professors and twenty-four undergraduate students. We visited art museums, learned about Renaissance and Roman architecture in Venice, Florence, and Rome, and ate some amazing food. This was my first trip to Italy. I hope that it’s not my last. I learned a lot...
A Cost-Effective Proposal to Improve Public Education in Iowa
Published in TH Media, Telegraph Herald - Dubuque, IA - 10/19/14 Readers who listen to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion will recognize the close to his weekly monologue: “Well, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children...
A Deeper Look at ‘Income Inequality’
If that increasing divide is to be bridged, leadership solutions need to be proposed and practiced which support environments that create meaningful work which provides for a stable family life, healthy respect for cultural mores which strengthen moral and ethical living, relationships grounded in promises and commitment rather than convenience...
