MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from One Simple Text: The Liz Marks Story (Shaw & Brown) GETTING TO ELIZABETH I careened around Elizabeth’s room, looking for something, anything, that felt like her that I could hold onto. Then, I saw it: her pillow—her favorite, the one she slept on every night, the one with the pizza stains, blotches of makeup, and the fruity scent of her perfume. I clutched that pillow to my chest for the whole ride to Shock Trauma. The drive had taken more than an hour, a span that people tend to think must have felt like an eternity. But it didn’t. I wanted that drive to last forever. I feared that once we arrived at Shock Trauma, they would tell us Elizabeth was dead. As long as the car rolled along the road, Elizabeth was alive. Paramedics had flown Elizabeth in a medevac helicopter from a cleared crop field a half-mile from the accident scene to the roof of the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, part of the University of Maryland Medical Center—Shock Trauma for short. There, s

  CHANGE OF HEART “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” --Ezekiel 36: 26   “I hate change!” If I received a dollar for every time a patient said that to me, I could work for free.   They often add, “Change replaces the familiar with the unknown. The unknown scares me.” In response, I remind my anxious patients, “If there is no change, you are dead. The future is always unknown, of course, because it does not yet exist. You are now in the process of creating your own future.” I also ask them,”Why are you here meeting with me, except to change?” They tell me how miserable they feel and powerless to do anything about it. Frightening change is the price of relief. Therapy is for healing and growth. Some of my patients imagine that their trying life circumstances cause their distress. In our work together they learn that only changing their minds and hearts, their outlooks, atti

  Excerpt from the pre-publication manuscript: Chapter 13 HOW DO WE USE OUR FREEDOM? “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” --Aung San Suu Kyi   ·        When the lockdowns began in March 2020 to stop the spread of the Coronavirus, “to flatten the curve,” we were shocked at this drastic measure. It underlined the seriousness and deadliness of the pandemic. We imagined the shutdown opening after a brief time. My friends and I exchanged humor and cartoons to help us cope with the shock and avoid panic. (The joking has slowed, almost to a standstill.) One cartoon was prescient of a coming attitude and agenda shift. It was a cartoon of a smiling Jim Carrey saying, “Hope they allow us off lockdown by July 4 th …so we can celebrate our freedom.” ·        His humor carries a stinging truth. Disillusionment has set in on a national scale. The lockdown was eased, but COVID-19 cases rose and States are closing down businesses and gatherings again. We are