Concentration Is Consecration
Sri Eknath Easwaran distinguishes two kinds of spiritual reading: that of instruction and that of inspiration. Simone Weil’s book, Waiting for God, is an example of the latter, as it is fecund with material for…
Month: February 2019
The Way It Looked in 1987
A huge amount of work obviously remains to be done, and as the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza enters its third decade one realizes that the magnitude of liberation required can only…
Fiddling with the Archetypes
Gary Snyder, The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979 I first learned of Gary Snyder in fictionalized form as the hero Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums. Therein, as in real life, the…
Disponibilidade
I first learned this Portuguese word from Mev, when she worked in Brazil among so many radical, radiant Christians. Here’s how she defined it in her book, The Struggle Is One: “a disposition of openness…
Share the Wealth with Priya Sirohi: Find Out Who You Are and Do It On Purpose: On Leaving Academia
I am currently a former SLU grad undertaking her PhD in Rhetoric at Purdue University. I am also in the process of transitioning out of academia and pursuing a job more filled with light and…
The Long Trail behind You
Shirin Ebadi, with Azadeh Moaveni, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope But a personal story is more powerful than any dry summary of why a given law should be changed. To attract people’s…
Festival of Kissing, Festival of Touching
Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces Marginalia and Notes, February 2001 I read this book because, like Arenas’s The Color of Summer, it exemplifies a style and structure that I wish to adapt for my…