Browse Topics
Religion and Philosophy
Resurrecting The Revolutionary Heart Of Judaism
An Interview With Michael Lerner
Jews jumped from the burning buildings of Europe and landed, unintentionally, on the backs of the Palestinians. Because our pain was so great from the Holocaust, we didn’t notice the pain we caused them.
April 2004
Sunbeams
March 2004[The philosopher] Wittgenstein writes about a man who, not being certain of an item he reads in the newspaper, buys one hundred copies of the paper to reassure himself of its truth.
December 2003
I don’t want to read the word of Jesus today. I don’t want to read the words of Buddha. Words didn’t help last night when Norma told me how sad she was. I said all the right words. I know I did. Look at all my brave little soldiers, banners flying, rushing to the rescue, marching right off a cliff.
December 2003The Life Of Alice Peters, As Told By Herself, The Blessed Alice Peters
Please don’t interpret this record as an indication that I lack modesty. Rather I wish to provide documentation that my life was holy, that I deserve to be canonized, and that my grave must become a shrine where the devout will gather with wheelchairs and crutches to hold candlelight vigils, chant in fourteen different languages, and pray for a disembodied me, in full glory and shining robes, to come and heal their hearts. Because after abandoning my body, this earthly inconvenience, I will grow in reputation as the patron saint of heartache.
December 2003
Sunbeams
September 2003At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don’t understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
Hello, I Must Be Going
The story of my life is the story of the Tao Te Ching. I first discovered this book, by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, when I was twelve years old. At that time I was in the smartest class at P.S. 152 in Manhattan. In fact, I was one of the smartest youths in the smartest class. I commonly received grades of 98, 99, and 100. I was also president of the class, and captain of the monitor squad. I planned to become a doctor.
September 2003What Was Hidden: Looking Deeper Into Christianity
An Interview With Richard Smoley
The inner Christian path, as I understand it, involves walking a fine line between the two extremes. You face all your inner issues rigorously and impartially; you want to see everything there is inside the teeming ocean of the psyche. But — and this is an important but — you are not identified with it. At the back of your mind there must always be an awareness that you are not your “passions” (to use the traditional Christian term), that there is something in you that is awake and alive and, incidentally, immortal. This is the true “I,” the pure consciousness, the “light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” It sees everything in you impartially and objectively — but also with profound compassion.
September 2003
Blessings In Disguise
A ride to a piano lesson, a right hook, a trail of mud
September 2003
Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today