Browse Topics
Compassion
Hospital Runs
On my very first hospital run I picked up this long-faced, country white guy who’d survived seven surgeries in the last five years. He looked to be late eighties, all but dead, but friendly in a half-deaf way.
March 2018
Sunbeams
December 2017True prophets sometimes, false prophets always, have fanatical adherents.
Jailhouse Blues
Henry Robinett On Teaching Inmates To Play The Guitar
These guys are allowed almost no dignity. As far as I’m concerned, their sentence is their punishment. They aren’t supposed to be treated cruelly on top of that.
October 2017
Sunbeams
September 2017It’s not enough to be gentle with those who are like us if we can’t find it in ourselves to be kind with those who are less fortunate than we are. The true test of our compassion lies in our ability to have concern for those least like ourselves.
One Of Us
Once upon a time there was an abbot of a monastery who was very good friends with the rabbi of a local synagogue. It was Europe, and times were hard. . . .
September 2017
Sunbeams
June 2017Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave — and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way.
The Good Samaritan
from The Gospel Of Luke
Once a certain scribe stood up and said, “Rabbi, what must I do to gain eternal life?”
June 2017
Years Later, I Go Back To Thank You
I walk past the Kwik Trip where you found me / in the dumpster, tunneling for canned food. / Past the VFW where you bought us burgers, / newspaper now taped over the windows.
June 2017Transforming The Heart Of Suffering
In fact, one’s whole attitude toward pain can change. Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, one could open one’s heart and allow oneself to feel that pain, feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kind.
November 2016
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