A Year of Reading Marcel Proust (& Sri Ramakrishna)
Cami Kasmerchak just gave me the idea of a reading group (like the one we did in 2021 of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov) of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Who’s been wanting to…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Glenn Greenwald and the Gospels
Today I received by email a Substack article by Glenn Greenwald, which is worth reading: Values and Character v. Political Identity: Some Personal Reflections–“The Brazilian firefighter, union leader, evangelical and ex-Congressman Cabo Daciolo was once…
Encouragement
You will have to go on discriminating and make a sustained effort to convince your mind of the fact that japa, meditation, and all other spiritual exercises, have for purpose your awakening. On this pilgrimage…
And What If No One Is Looking on and Applauding?
William D Miller, A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement After reading and discussing The Brothers Karamazov with 12 friends in 2021, I finally read William Miller’s 1973 history of…
Dipa Ma Gives Advice to Her Students
“If you can just manage five minutes a day, then do that. It is important to do whatever you can, no matter how little.” “If you are a householder, you have enough time. Very…
Zosima’s Two Tweets Today Aren’t Trending
Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems…
Friday 9 September 2022
… Later I’m back in New York sitting around with Irwin and Simon and Raphael and Lazarus, and now we’re famous writers more or less, but they wonder why I’m so sunk now, so unexcited…
“Observe What’s Vivid”
1.“There is a story in the Jewish tradition about a student going to see a great rabbi, not principally to study Torah or Talmud, but to watch how the rabbi ties his shoes.”–Eboo Patel 2. “I…
What Rubem Said to Maria Evelina
Yes, Raquel’s birth was a purifying experience in that it empowered me to say, “this is important,” and the rest becomes blurred. Her birth re-integrated things in my life. For example, when she was born…
A Merton Hour with Liz Burkemper: Fourth and Walnut
In the waning light of the Buck Moon, let us read and reflect together on Thomas Merton’s moment of enlightenment at the corner of Fourth and Walnut (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander). What is a…