Righteous, Remorseful Jews
As my 61st birthday approaches, I’ve noticed that I have recently been going back to authors and works I read many years ago. For example, I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal, William D. Miller’s…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
The Pleasure of Dwelling on Things We Have Read
Zilbadone, noun, Italian. A zibaldone is an Italian vernacular commonplace book. The word means “a heap of things” or “miscellany” in Italian. The earliest such books were kept by Venetian merchants in the fourteenth century,…
Share the Wealth with Sari Althubyani: Cultivating Empathy
I had the good fortune of having Sari in two clases at Maryville University. He also came to at least 20 Sunday Share the Wealth events, so I am happy to ask him to share with…
Merton’s Journal
Calcutta is shocking because it is all of a sudden a totally different kind of madness, the reverse of that other madness, the mad rationality of affluence and overpopulation. America seems to make sense,…
A Basic Seventeen
November 1999 “And so, first of all, let us remember him, gentlemen, all our lives. And even though we may be involved with the most important affairs, achieve distinction or fall into some great misfortune…
Start Small
In The Art of Living class, we just finished considering Chan Khong’s classic work of engaged Buddhism, Learning True Love. I shared with my friends at the beginning of the course, “The Rules” of the…
Left Alone Blues
Was it something I said?Was it a promise I botched? Was it something I didn’t say?Was it an important letter for your future I said I’d write, but didn’t? Was it a facial expression giving…
An Honest Man: Smedley Butler
Marine General Smedley Butler, in a 1933 speech: “I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in…
I Thank Jonathan Richman
When did he meet Joanie French?He captured her almost perfectly… If only he included her swishing from 25 feet In “Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow”!
How It Was
Michele Turner has collected personal testimonies by the East Timorese about their recent history of suffering and resistance. Telling East Timor reminds me of Mev’s book of interviews with Brazilians, in that these, too, are…