Category: Wisdom

Seven Wise Teachings We Should All Remember

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Tomorrow would have been Neil’s 62nd birthday. It’s nice to think of him today and smile without tears. He wasn’t perfect like me (lol) but he sure did have his good points. He was the most generous person I ever met– he would give away his shirt if someone else needed it – and in fact, on several occasions, did just that. He was level-headed and calm and loved to laugh – even when his jokes weren’t funny. And he had a remarkable wisdom that I didn’t always appreciate at the time. This is an old post, but it seems appropriate to resurrect it:

Neil had a way of teaching me things. Sometimes I learned from him, other times I learned because of him, but in retrospect he was pretty wise. Here are seven of his great life lessons we should all remember.

1. Don’t be afraid. Be reasonable, but don’t be afraid – to try something new, to go somewhere alone, to make a new friend, to do what you want.

2. Be compassionate to everyone – young people, old people, tattooed people, long-haired people, smokers, drinkers, drug users, folks in jail  – because underneath it all they’re just people like us. No one is perfect, and every one of us is human and flawed, yet God loves us all. We should love each other.

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The Camino Trail Part 3: What I Brought Home

/ colleen arnold / 4 Comments Featured

Last month I had the incredible experience of hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Here’s the third installment about the adventure!

People talk about leaving something behind on the Camino: grief or anger or other emotional baggage that weighs them down.  I wondered if my walk would uncover something I needed to abandon in order to happily move forward. Oddly, I don’t think I left anything behind, but I did bring something back: fresh eyes for my everyday pilgrimage.

Can you tell which is which?
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How Do I Get Through This?

/ colleen arnold / 20 Comments Featured

“How am I going to get through this?” my friend asked, as quiet tears slid down her weary-eyed face. There was no easy answer for her question, so I just reached across the table and held her hand.

The odd thing was that she was the fourth person lately who asked that same question. My guess is that each of us has asked it before, probably more than once. Between the grief of a husband’s sudden death, the loss of a miscarriage, a terrifying health diagnosis, and unexpected marital separations, it seems I know a lot of people who are struggling. I have been thinking about how I survived when Neil died. Here’s some thoughts.

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When All You Want is to Give Up

/ colleen arnold / 8 Comments Featured

Its was one of the worst winters we ever had. Snow was three feet deep on our hilly, gravel road. It was also a time when I worked in the emergency department at the local hospital. ERs don’t shut down no matter the weather, ever.

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get to work otherwise, the hospital sent the national guard to collect me for the night shift. The snow was too deep for the even Humvee to travel the ¾ mile from the main road, so the soldiers called ahead to say they would walk to my house and carry me back to the vehicle. Mortified, I left home long before they were scheduled to arrive. The snow was literally up to my hips and I made it less than half way before I met two guardsman.

“You were supposed to stay put so we could carry you,” one sweet young man admonished.

“There is no way anyone is going to carry me,” I retorted.

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On Being a Know-It-All

/ colleen arnold / 2 Comments


I am such a know-it-all;  we all are sometimes. And of course, we don’t know everything….

Neil and I were in Tuscany. The scenery was magnificent: narrow medieval streets, beautiful vistas visible from walled cities, history so alive I could feel the ancients walking the cobbled roads with us. Despite all this, the most remarkable part of the trip was my discovery of arugula.

We were seated at an outdoor café in the tiny village of Cortona (home to Betty Mayes and “Under the Tuscan Sun”). Before the waiter even took our order, he brought bread and salads. The bread was warm and fragrant, but the salad got all my attention. Simple sliced pears arranged on a bed of green leaves, and drizzled with good Italian olive oil, it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. But it wasn’t the perfect pears or the fine olive oil that impressed me, it was those peppery leaves. “Neil, taste this salad! The greens are amazing!”

He raised his eyebrows with a questioning look. “You mean the arugula?” Continue reading →