BACKTO HEALING STONES

Even with Healing Waters about to be released in December, we're still getting a lot of mail about Healing Stones, our novel about forgiveness -- or the lack of it. The topic seems to strike more nerves than a shock therapy treatment. I'd just like to coax one of those many nerves out for nurturing today -- and that's the issue of forgiving ourselves. Let me start out by saying that I, Sullivan Crisp, am more than qualified to ask the question, "How do your forgive yourself?' because I'm still working on it. Seriously. I sit down. I pray. I give up all the guilt and the angst and the regret and the agonized searches into the past -- just turn it all over to God. And then I'm good for, oh, ten minutes, twenty max, before some tendril of remorse starts to irritate me like a hair in my eye. I don't think I'm alone in that. We can hold out the olive branch to everyone else, but when it comes to ourselves, we only bring it close enough to grab the ocacsional leaf off of the thing. Over the next week, I'd like to explore this elusive thing called self-forgiveness -- why it's hard, why we have to do it, and how we can. Because I think the stones we throw at ourselves are the ones that hit the hardest, and leave the deepest bruises. I hope you'll explore with me.

As always:

* This is not a substitute for professional therapy.

* You can always comment privately.

Blessing that heart of yours,

Sullivan Crisp

HEALING WATERS

I thought you'd like a sneak preview of the next novel I appear in, entitled Healing Waters. This is where we tackle the issue of what we bury alive. Yes, the protagonist, Lucia Brocacini Coffey (not to be confused with something you would order at StarBucks) is overweight, so she is literally feeding her past and her pain. But you don't have to try to keep it quiet with food. Or with any of the other obvious choices -- overuse of alcohol, abuse of prescription drugs, compulsive shopping (which is not at all the same as healthy retail therapy, I've been told.) There are other attempts to keep the old issues at bay which may not on the surface seem all that bad. Society even accepts workaholism, perfectionism, and overloaded schedules as part of normal twenty-first century living. Even serial relationships, or no relationships beyond MySpace "friends" have merely become a part of the fabric of Americana. But here's the deal: don't buy it. If we're using something -- anything -- in excess purely to keep ourselves from feeling or confronting or ripping someone's eyebrows out, that's a problem. I know. I tried it myself. My addiction, which you know if you've read Healing Stones, was saving the world, one psyche at a time. Not a bad thing if it's really souls you're concerned about, and not just the avoidance of your own grief. I paid dearly for thirteen years of stuffing myself with working and serving and saving. I hate to see that happen to anybody. So, hey, think about it. Share if you want to. There will be no buzzing. Only ding-ding-dings. As always:

* This is not a substitute for professional therapy
* You can share privately if you want.

Looking forward to learning from you.

I'M BACK!

I know it's been a while since I've shown up, but I'm committed to being here for you at least twice a week from now on. Seriously. If not more. Because here's the deal: we're getting more and more email saying people need healing for the tough journeys. One reader said to us, "I've accumulated nearly ten years of psychotherapy in my life (Christian and non) and none of it was that good. It was all either confrontational and harsh, or irrelevant and useless. I wonder if there really is therapy out there like that, or if it only exists in Utopian fiction." We're not about offering you therapy here, but I'd like to put some topics and questions out there for you to think about, and offer my own thoughts which I guarantee won't be confrontational and harsh, or, hopefully, irrelevant and useless. I'll start -- then you feel free to jump in with questions and concerns -- and "Crisp, you are a nut bar," if that's what comes to you. Any time you want a more private conversation, just request that by posting a comment.

So let's get started. Healing Waters, my next book, is centered around this premise. "Whatever you bury emotionally, you bury alive, and you have to feed it." Any comments?