Knowing how to be present without overstepping boundaries can help a loved one. — Moral values and the identities that sustain our relationships are the most important aspects of our lives: they constitute what is most sacred in us. Our sense that we are worth something and beloved by others lies at the heart of our relationships with them and the world. The violation…

“We Trudged Through an Unknown, Unexperienced Evil — Unaware How That Evil Took Hold in Us” The following essay was written by Joseph Simboli Jr., (my partner’s father) one of the members of the 89th Infantry Division who liberated Ohrdruf, the first Nazi concentration camp to be discovered by American forces in April 1945. …

Anti-abortion laws have traditionally allowed an exception to protect the “life of the mother.” Not anymore. Originally published in POLITICO. In 1942, my grandmother lay in a hospital bed in center city Philadelphia waiting to die. She was 26 years old, happily married, and pregnant with her first child. …

In the wake of 9/11, families heeded the call to service for their country as loved ones were sent to war. After the fall of Afghanistan, they continue to struggle to reconcile the moral costs and reconstitute their relationships. — Co-written with Rita Brock, Senior Vice President and Director of the Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America and co-author of Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War (Beacon 2012).

The human conscience is our ‘inner voice,’ but we can’t hear it without mindful focus on where we direct our attention — Once, while sitting in my car waiting to get onto the Bay Bridge, I was physically assaulted by a man with a bag of rocks who seemed to be strung out on drugs. The experience was disconcerting, to say the least, but what I also remember is the shock of…

Confronting a new wave of moral injury with the fall of Afghanistan — Put down the espresso and stop filtering photos for social media. It’s time that we as a society really listen to those at the frontlines of moral pain — otherwise we are bound to keep repeating the sins of the past. It’s late afternoon on an unremarkable day. The sky…

How to cultivate moral resilience instead — “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” is a centuries-old proverb inspired by a Japanese carving that depicts three monkeys, each with a hand covering eyes, ears, and mouth, respectively. …

The invisible wounds of moral injury run deep for those on the front lines — “Some experiences imprint themselves beyond where language can speak.” These are the words of psychiatrist and trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk. This is also the experience of many health care workers ensnared in the Covid-19 pandemic. “I just can’t… can’t find the words… there simply are none,” whispered a…

There’s a good reason why “Think happy thoughts” or “Just get over it” doesn’t work for some types of of trauma, like moral injury and other forms of adversity. — “It’s late and dark somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. Our mission has just gone from bad to fucked up. An intelligence disaster — out of date information, ignorant militia fighters, one in particular who has seriously betrayed us.