Browse Topics
Religion and Philosophy
Loving The Stranger
Rabbi Michael Lerner On The Folly Of Nationalism
The people who preach that “politics is the art of the possible” continually forget that we don’t know what’s possible; we find out by struggling for what’s desirable. Instead of listening to those who tell you to pick goals that can be achieved in the current political landscape, I say pick goals that will create the kind of world you want.
September 2012Conversations With A Remarkable Man
Honoring The Late James Hillman
Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help? They have been deprived of something by our psychological culture. They have been deprived of the sense that there is something else in life, some purpose that has come with them into the world.
July 2012St. Sebastian
First baseman / for the King James Bible Martyrs, / my favorite guy / in the whole New Testament, / all those arrows sticking out of him / like a pincushion.
June 2012Water, Water Everywhere
Ran Ortner’s Love Affair With The Sea
If I could convey the ocean’s paradoxes, its ferocity and tenderness, in the same image, I could possibly awaken the viewer to a place where language drops away. By setting these massive, lush paintings in the artificial environment of the contemporary gallery, I intend to make it feel astonishing, to have an impact so immediate that it becomes what Kafka called an “ax for the frozen sea inside us.”
June 2012Meat
My friend Tommy Crotty, who was a terrific basketball player in New York and went on to play college ball and be a cheerful husband and excellent dad before the idiot who just died in Abbottabad murdered him and thousands of people on September Eleventh, used to call every big guy he ever played with Meat.
March 2012February 2012
I need to cut more pages from my upcoming book, so I’m trying to keep in mind William Faulkner’s advice to writers: “You must kill all your darlings.” No more procrastinating over whether a particular Notebook entry deserves a berth or needs to walk the plank.
February 2012No Ears Have Heard
Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.
Selected Poems
— from “In His Wallet after the Terrorist Bombing” | Three library cards, all tattered — college, city, county. / Driver’s license in which he looks about ten years old. / Grocery-store club membership cards, all bright colors.
February 2012Sunbeams
December 2011Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.
Contemplation On Rain And Religion
I always feel more religious in the sunshine, / especially if it’s not hot and the place is pretty / and most people can’t afford to get there or just / don’t bother. Morning has broken and all that.
December 2011Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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