Have you ever noticed how often we speak to ourselves? Sometimes it happens almost without thinking. We say, “Get up.” “Keep going.” “Do not be afraid.” “You can do this.” What seems like a simple habit is often something much deeper. One part of the soul is speaking to another. Many of our deepest struggles take place within, where one part of the soul reaches for peace while another clings to fear. One part wants to trust God, while another remains tired and uncertain. The

Last week in Lowell, Massachusetts, I was taken to City Hall to see a memorial khachkar, a cross-stone called “A Mother’s Hands”. As I reached up and touched the bronze hands above the cross, my thoughts immediately turned to my grandmother Eva, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. I remembered her steady, patient hands making needle lace, and how, when I was a teenager, she taught me to lace. Needle lace is delicate work. It requires patience, attention, and care. You do not

A few weeks ago, I was in Washington, D.C. during cherry blossom season. The city was filled with beauty: trees covered in soft pink and white blossoms, almost like a living painting. But what struck me just as deeply were the trees that had been cut down. Even from some of those trunks, new shoots were already beginning to grow. Life was quietly rising where everything seemed finished. We all know what it feels like to face something in life that seems cut down: a dream, a p