Lessons
The lesson of the Holocaust is the facility with which most people, put into a situation that does not contain a good choice, or renders such a good choice very costly, argue themselves away from…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
Share the Wealth with Sara Gajda: My Life as a Young Farmer
When she was 20, Sara began farming in north St. Louis city at New Roots Urban Farm. After obtaining her permaculture certification and working as a ranch hand in southern Oregon, she moved to Sandhill…
An Option for “Unworthy Victims”
On Norman G. Finkelstein, The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Year First published in the National Catholic Reporter, fall 1997 Some years back, the political critics Noam Chomsky and…
Theme of Class #2: From Up in the Air
In our Thursday evening class, Walking Together without Fear: Reading and Writing with Alice Walker, we pondered the following reflections from Alice Walker, Denise Levertov, and Fred Branfman. 1. Alice Walker, Thousands of Feet Below…
Resistance in the United States of Amnesia
I noticed this post by veteran and medical student Juan Miguel Spinnato: “I always need to remind myself that most of the American public still isn’t able to see Bush’s war in Iraq as a…
This I Know Is True
If you stay in relation to writing (rather than zoning out for six years) and you connect with writing friends, read, listen deeply, you will write what you want but most likely never the way…
Dear Srimatiji
You often said to me When we were face to face in Chicago “No worry” So I write to you far away With beaming confidence “No hurry”
Patience
There are years that ask the question and years that answer. — Zora Neale Hurston
Ramadan (Guests)
Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights We do home-stays here Like many before us And some will continue after we leave Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home On the…
Mindfulness with Words
Before hurling insults and accusations at another, one should consider one’s own state of mind and circumstances. The tendency to lash out, defame, and belittle is an aspect of conceit. The scriptures illustrate it with…