Coming Up
Friday 3 March: discussion of Svetlana Alexeievich, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, with Lori and Helen at Handlebar Restaurant Saturday 4 March: sharing with sangha on In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
How To Generate a Draft for a Book on Walking Adventures USA
Start out on a walk, with water, digital recorder, notebook and pen Go an hour, noticing what ever catches your eye and ear and nostril and recording on digital Stop after an hour (or 42…
Share the Wealth with Tony Albrecht–Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Trump
During this time when Trump is on the tip of so many American tongues, I’m preparing for an unusually political Share the Wealth. Our conversation this Sunday will not, however, traverse the usual spectrum between…
Gloria Emerson’s Rage, according to Cal
Dear Carla Cal keeps sending me stuff I keep sending it to you With my slight adaptations… Perry I endorse her rage I approve of it Even though the Buddhist masters say Anger is a…
What Jarvis Learned
At a recent gathering of the Saint Louis Mindfulness Sangha, I shared the following excerpt from Pema Chödrön’s book, Go to the Places That Scare You… The second of the three lords of materialism is the…
The Power of Hummus and Hospitality
My friend Lindsey Weston sent me this letter in November of last year. I am happy to share it with you.
Preparing for “Hope and Holiness”–A Letter from Andrew Wimmer
Dear Friends, John Gabriel wrote last week that he plans to meet with the archbishop to gain clarity. As I pointed out in my email to faculty on January 11, there is nothing ambiguous about the…
Ekāgratā
I suddenly had the everlasting conviction that any human being, even though practically devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the kingdom of truth reserved for genius, if only he longs for truth and perpetually…
A More Lively Mode
I read James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson in the summer of 1999. At the time I was gathering materials for what eventually became The Book of Mev. The following passage from Boswell left its…
Take the Long View
I once wrote for a magazine: I made a calculation, that if I should write but a page a day, at the same rate, I should, in ten years, write nine volumes in folio, of…