Nonviolence https://www.thesunmagazine.org/rss en-us Lesson Plan The Right and I agree on the potential of universities as a space in which students develop ideas that can transform the world. The difference is, they want to stamp it out, and I want to encourage it.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28952 Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:45 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/604-lesson-plan 604-4-wolf-preview.jpg 604 - Wolf - Risak Outpouring In the aftermath of a second killing by federal agents in Minneapolis, Alison Luterman wrote “Outpouring,” a poem about the massive protests in response to ICE’s presence in the city. It’s a reflection of the enormity of emotion that these terrible events have brought forth—outrage and fear, yes, but most of all love for our neighbors.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28924 Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28924-outpouring Stirring the Pot Leading a strike, starting trouble between sisters, feeding strangers

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28904 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-stirring-the-pot 601-32-stone-preview.jpg 601 - Stone - Stirring the Pot Graffiti A tag on a dumpster, poetry in an outhouse, Viking runes in an underground tomb

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28850 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-graffiti 598-32-Davidove-preview.jpg 598-Davidove-Graffiti Flower People jholman0099@gmail.com There was a rumor the NAACP would call for a boycott of white-owned businesses. Eugene’s mother said it wasn’t clear what the objective would be, except to piss off white people and make Black people feel in control of something. “A show of Black power,” she said, holding up a fist from the living-room sofa, but she was worried more people would be killed.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28598 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-flower-people 587-16-whiteman-preview.jpg 587 - Whiteman - Holman An Aspect Of Freedom What is it about a traffic stop and a city block and a sidewalk and a country road and a Bible study and a choir room and a vestibule and a playground and a living room and a bedroom and a bed and a driveway and a highway and a stairwell and a gas station and a suburb and a driver’s seat and a parking lot and a balcony and the door to one’s own home.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23168 Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:05:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23168-an-aspect-of-freedom Market Street The sea of people looked like a great heartbroken circus, wild living art, motley and stylish, old and young, lots of Buddhists, people from unions and churches and temples, punks and rabbis and aging hippies and nuns and veterans — God, I love the Democratic Party — strewn together on the asphalt lawn of Market Street.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22691 Thu, 31 Mar 2022 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22691-market-street Fighting Back With fists, with words, with kindness

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26052 Thu, 25 Mar 2021 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26052-fighting-back Fighting Back When I was nine, / my father began / telling me how to hurt / other boys. He said to / squeeze their upper lips / until their eyes watered / or twist their ears and / hold them low so you can / walk them like a dog.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23375 Thu, 25 Feb 2021 05:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23375-fighting-back The Practice Of Touch I imagine my own daughter in Danny’s situation. She is a toddler, so I would be allowed to stay with her if she got COVID. But if she were older, what would I do? What rules would I break to sit beside her?

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25880 Sat, 07 Nov 2020 17:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25880-the-practice-of-touch The Four Invasions Indigenous people are protecting the earth’s lungs and liver. Without us, civilization would be even farther down the road to its own destruction.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24680 Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24680-the-four-invasions On Foot And On Faith I did not seem to be walking on the earth. There were no people or even animals around, but every flower, every bush, every tree seemed to wear a halo. There was a light emanation around everything and flecks of gold fell like slanted rain through the air.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24921 Sat, 01 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24921-on-foot-and-on-faith We Need To Talk We develop courage by coming out of hiding, coming out of the closet, and there are thousands of closets.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25598 Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25598-we-need-to-talk August 2018 Featuring Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, and more.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25742 Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25742-august-2018 December 2017 Featuring Rabbi Michael Lerner, Barbara Kingsolver, Sister Helen Prejean, Sy Safransky, and more.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21703 Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21703-december-2017 November 2017 Featuring Pico Iyer, Starhawk, Sister Joan Chittister, Sparrow, Sy Safransky, and more.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24908 Wed, 01 Nov 2017 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24908-november-2017 The low road What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23153 Sun, 01 Oct 2017 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23153-the-low-road See You At The Impeachment We may survive Trump, as we did Ronald Reagan, or we may not. My first goal, now that the election is over, is to renew my expired passport under the lame-duck Obama presidency. If Trump really is Mussolini, I may finally fulfill my longtime dream of living in coastal Sri Lanka.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26025 Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26025-see-you-at-the-impeachment An Unlikely Friendship Do not give up hope. Despite the Holocaust there is now a German ambassador in Israel, and an Israeli ambassador in Berlin. Fortunately the Palestinians didn’t kill 6 million Israelis, and the Israelis didn’t kill 6 million Palestinians. There is hope that we can reconcile, too.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25052 Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25052-an-unlikely-friendship Memorial Day Our dad will not walk in the parade wearing his uniform. He declines politely every year when he is asked. . . . He says uniforms are dangerous statements, if you think about it. He says uniforms can easily confer false authority, and encourage hollow bravado, and augment unfortunate inclinations, and exacerbate violent predilections. This is how he talks. He says uniforms are public pronouncements, like parades, and we should be careful about what we say in public.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27197 Wed, 01 Jun 2016 17:03:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27197-memorial-day <em>excerpted from</em><br />Letter From Birmingham Jail Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22234 Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/22234-em-excerpted-from-em-br-letter-from-birmingham-jail High Times: A Tribute to Stephen Gaskin Sixties icon and self-styled “nonviolent social revolutionary” Stephen Gaskin died this past July at the age of seventy-nine. Gaskin was a prominent figure on the countercultural scene in San Francisco in the late sixties and went on to found the long-running intentional community the Farm, which is still thriving in rural Tennessee.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26382 Sat, 01 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26382-high-times-a-tribute-to-stephen-gaskin Beautiful Trouble Subtitled A Toolbox for Revolution, the anthology Beautiful Trouble offers advice on how to plan and execute successful protest actions. Coeditors Andrew Boyd and Dave Oswald Mitchell have assembled the wisdom of many activists and troublemakers like themselves into a book about what works and what doesn’t, how to recruit people and keep them engaged, and where to direct efforts for the greatest impact.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23061 Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23061-beautiful-trouble Sunbeams

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

David Friedman

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26485 Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:48:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26485-sunbeams The War Prayer “God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25909 Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25909-the-war-prayer Indefensible The path to security can only be through total nuclear disarmament. We cannot indefinitely maintain a world of nuclear haves and have-nots, and we cannot go attacking every country that we think might be on the path to making a bomb.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26612 Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26612-indefensible <em>excerpted from</em><br />Parables: The Arrows Of God There was a woman who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the papers and get depressed.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24295 Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24295-em-excerpted-from-em-br-parables-the-arrows-of-god Gethsemane When the disciple who loved Him most / unsheathed his sword / and sliced off the right ear / of the high priest’s servant, / we all cheered and stomped the parquet floor / in that February classroom

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25421 Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25421-gethsemane The Butterfly Effect Yet I remind people that what’s referred to as a single tree-sitting action was, for me, 738 separate days: twenty-four hours in a day; sixty minutes in an hour; sixty seconds in a minute. It was the moment-by-moment process that transformed me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27738 Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27738-the-butterfly-effect <em>excerpted from</em><br />The First And Last Freedom Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money; also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21860 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21860-em-excerpted-from-em-br-the-first-and-last-freedom