A Source of Life
As a young adult entering the Sisters of Loretto at eighteen, somewhat naively, I spent a lot of genuine effort to read and take seriously the Gospel. What has sustained me over the long haul,…
Category: Book of Mev
Be In Love with This Life: A Class with Cami Kasmerchak and Mark Chmiel
One September evening, a group of Weston students walked past a disfigured man in a wheel-chair begging outside the school. No one said hello or even acknowledged him, which prompted Gene later to ask aloud…
January 12, 1996
The first week of January was bright and bitterly cold. Pat Geier and Cristobhal, our friend from Guatemala, had spent Christmas and New Year’s with us and had already left for Louisville, but she was…
Being Together
Sheri Hostetler’s ReflectionGraduate Theological Union Memorial Service, March 1996 Mark has asked me to speak on his behalf today since I am a close friend of his and since I was one of the few…
“What a Community!” Reading The Book of Mev by Jean Durel
My friend Jean sent me the following… Have so loved The Book of Mev — even though my heart was breaking at times and tears were streaming down my face. Of course I knew the end,…
Meditations
Written in the Margins of Ginsberg’s “Why I Meditate” There are 10,000 reasons to meditate (at least) There are 10,000 beings to save (for starters) There are 10,000 demented states of consciousness to purify (carpe…
The Reading Life/2
By the Blue Light of a Cell Phone by Katie Consamus Dr Chmiel, I just flipped on CNN after getting home from rehearsal and immediately thought of our encounter on New Year’s Eve as I…
An Actor
Sealing the Deal A couple of months after The Book of Mev came out, I did a reading and signing at at Left Bank Books in Saint Louis’s Central West End. I asked one of…
Mentshes/2
“I Belong to Chomsky” Spring 1994 was blooming in the Bay Area. We participated in a Good Friday demonstration at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear laboratory with Steve Kelly and our Pax Christi friends. The following…
Micro-Affections
Her Favorite Photograph Out of the blue She texted me First, there was a photo: Then Lena Laserstein Wrote underneath it: “My favorite photograph” Being ever so curious I wrote her back: “Why do you…