The Way It Looked in 1973
In March 1973 Israel’s prime minister Golda Meir Paid a visit to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger Politicians shmooze as easily as they breathe Meir was grateful for US support of Israel And urged the…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
Revision
The poet W. H. Auden said “The funniest and kindest of mortals Are those who are most aware of the baffle of being” (A friend named Rex used this quotation In an inscription to me…
Last Session of Spring Writing Class
Katrina Becker, Carol Becherer Wright, Ron Laney, Fatima Rhodes, Chelsea Eva Jaeger, Susan Anning Clark, and April Ulinski–thanks for your creative camaraderie today at Cafe Ventana! Another wonderful class comes to an end. So I remember Thich Nhat Hanh says,…
Share the Wealth with Anne Milne and Katherine Kelliher: Wisdom from the Cells
This March, we spent our Spring Break in Los Angeles immersing ourselves in various facets of the restorative justice movement. We spent time with the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative (JRJI), Homeboy Industries, and the Anti-Recidivism…
Episodes/2 (How to Sleep at Night)
During Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 Diaspora moralist Elie Wiesel was of the opinion That given the dramatic sweep of thousands of years of Jewish history What was then taking place— The bombing of…
Episodes/1 (The Prophetic)
To us a single act of injustice (Cheating in business, exploitation of the poor) Is slight To the prophets A disaster To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people To the prophets…
Children of Vietnam
On Betty Lifton and Tom Fox, Children of Vietnam, 1972 The writer of children’s stories and a former IVS volunteer and journalist had to do something. So they compiled this Mev Puleo-ish book of stories and…
I Badgered and Pestered Rumi To See a Page of His Favorite Writing Notebook and He Finally Relented and Showed Me How Each Page of All Three Hundred Looked More or Less Just Like This—
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Share the Wealth with Jane Gramlich: The Role of People Raised “White” in Ending Racism
Hello my dear brothers and sisters! I hope you will join us Sunday to further our understanding of racism, how it has impacted our relationship to self, our relationships with other folks raised white, as well as…
The Right to Remember
“The right to remember is not among the human rights consecrated by the United Nations, but now more than ever we must insist on it and act on it. Not to repeat the past but…