Grief.Place Blog

In most of the world, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere). This means that Easter can range between March 22 and April 25. That's more than a month of date possibilities. In 2023, Easter will be celebrated on April 9. But what exactly is Easter celebrating? With the recent excitement surrounding the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), I decided to get some feedback from two of the most popular AI chatbots . First, I asked Google's application Bard . Having been granted early access to the interface, I was curious to ask Bard what Easter is a celebration of. Its responses were a bit disappointing. See screen capture below: That's a pretty disappointing response, or should I say nonresponse? But perhaps Bard was just not working correctly when I made my inquiry. So I decided to give the other major AI chatbot an opportunity to answer the question. When I asked ...

When most Americans think about Saint Patrick's Day, the following things often come to mind: green, shamrocks, Ireland, and drinking. Americans have little understanding of who St. Patrick was or when he lived in Ireland. (It was during the 5th Century.) And most of us don't know that he wasn't born Irish, he was a Christian missionary who traveled to that country. While St. Patrick's activities are somewhat lost to history, there are a few details of his life that are presented in his short autobiographical manuscript, Confessio . St. Patrick was kidnapped from his home in Britain when he was about 16 years old. He was carried off to Ireland where he was enslaved as a sheepherder for about 6 years. As a result of a dream, St. Patrick decided to escape to a ship on the coast. His journey to freedom, back to his family in Britain, was a difficult one. He made it home. Yet ironically, God put it on his heart to return to Ireland to minister to the people there, even to t...

  We live in a broken world. If suffering doesn't strike us personally, it invariably hits our friends and coworkers. Too often we forget to show them love and instead we ask questions that don't help. For example, the next time someone tells you that their elderly parent or grandparent is in the hospital don't ask them how old their parent or grandparent is. While we may simply be curious, the message that we are indirectly sending is, "Haven't they lived a long life already? Should we really be that upset; aren't they going to die soon anyway?" Instead of a cold, quantitative inquiry, it would be better to offer a warm, compassionate show of support.  For example, we could respond by saying, "I'm so sorry to hear that your grandmother is in the hospital. How are you holding up during this difficult time?"   Notice that this question is not trying to get data about the elderly person in the hospital. In these types of conversations, we need ...

  My resolution for this coming year is to post a weekly article to LinkedIn on the topic of life purpose. Each article can be accessed at this link: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/living-on-purpose-7014494388470915072/ While I will keep this site focused on issues related to grief and my chaplain work, I will upload each of my LinkedIn articles to my blog at https://www.mybibledevotions.com/blog . However, the articles posted at that blog will be a couple weeks behind what you can find at my LinkedIn page. Posting articles at my blog site will provide easy access to those individuals who do not have an account with LinkedIn. It will also serve as an archive for my work. I hope you will take a minute to check it out and let me know what you think. (Photo credit: 2023 maze by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash )