Suffering As Grace

An Interview With Ram Dass

From the Buddhist point of view, we have five hindrances: lust and greed; hatred and ill will; sloth and torpor; agitation; and doubt. That’s who we are, so why is one surprised if there’s suffering? But when you look at it from the spiritual point of view, you see that suffering is grace, a gift given in order to awaken you.

Giving Away Gardens

A Crip gang member approached the woman for whom I was building a vegetable garden — an old woman on welfare, an ex-prostitute, ex-waitress, ex-chicken-butchering plant worker. He said he was tired, pimping was hard work.

Born Too Young: Diary Of A Pilgrimage

(Part One)

First I want to see Baba, and offer myself to the Lord. I’m not saying he’s the Lord — although part of this journey is to find out — but whether he is the Lord or no, or whether anyone is the Lord or no, or whether there is a Lord, I want to present myself to the Lord, and the place to do it is where Baba is. Why? Because I’ve been dancing around his picture for eleven years and he’s come to represent the Mystery.

Red Sky At Night

But as it happened, the first pitch, Red’s special, laden with spit and tobacco juice, zigzagged its way home. Just as it reached the pink-flowered flour sack, it curved like a martin changing directions. Any real ballplayer would have known it was outside by a mile. But Sammy Dan reached for it — a slow, easy stroke with the air of a man taking a leisurely stretch upon rising the day after the crops are in — and sent the ball heavenward.

The Apple

Late at night I heard a scream. Ivan was shaking me violently. “Father’s dying!” he shrieked. It was pitch-black in the room. I sprang out of bed, and both of us ran to our parents’ bedroom. “Where’s Mother?”

The Acts Of Father Mark

Father Mark replaced the chapel’s crucifix with a dead pigeon he had found on the highway. Many of his parish were outraged.

God’s Dream