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Language Of Devotion

A Conversation With David James Duncan

Articulating life — converting inarticulate being into words — is definitely one of the great joys of being a writer. For me, the great frustration of being a writer is the same as what frustrates me in my spiritual life: my own stupidity, ignorance, and inability at times to perceive and give voice to the wonder and truth that is always there.

Sunbeams

Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that comes only from whipped cream.

Katherine Mansfield

Sunbeams

The media transforms the great silence of things into its opposite.

Michel de Certeau

In Search of Zen Judaism

“With all due respect, Rabbi,” I said, “you are wrong. If I understand the term correctly, a megalomaniac thinks he is God. I, on the other hand, know I am God.”

Sunbeams

A man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time he’ll give him sixpence. But the second time it’ll be only a threepenny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he’ll have him cold-bloodedly handed over to the police.

Bertolt Brecht

Generosity

A spare tire, a Shirley Temple doll, a bruise in the unmistakable shape of a hand

Sunbeams

This kind of split makes me crazy, this territorializing of the holy. Here God may dwell. Here God may not dwell. It contradicts everything in my experience, which says: God dwells where I dwell. Period.

Nancy Mairs

One True Life

Walking to the neighborhood store, / my small, beautiful dog / straining at his red leash, and I / in my big winter jacket / against an April freeze and this / light battering of rain — / a young man approaches us, can / of beer and a Lotto / ticket in his hand.

Sunbeams

I believe in original sin. I find people profoundly bad and irresistibly funny.

Joe Orton

Altars In The Street

Sleeping alone in our bed one night when my husband, Stan, was away, I was awakened at 5 A.M. by a big wind. I put on my slippers and a robe and went into the kitchen. It was late November, and still dark at that hour of the morning. When I tried the kitchen light, I discovered the power was off. Looking outside, I saw the street lights were out. The wind was gusting so violently between our house and the apartment building next door, I was afraid the fir trees would blow down. I stood at the window, watching them toss and bend alarmingly.