Hermitages

Turns out that all my final favorite writers (Dickinson, Blake, Thoreau) ended up their lives in little hermitages… Emily in her cottage, Blake in his, with wife; and Thoreau his hut… –Jack Kerouac, Selected Letters, v….

If Only…

Grushenka’s fable is in fact a parabolic gloss on Zosima’s often repeated aphorism that all are responsible for all.  Had the old peasant woman not kicked away the other sinners who were clinging to her…

From Russia to India

In the East, and especially in India, Tolstoy’s beliefs seem still to be very much alive. Gandhi regarded himself as a humble follower, and his tremendously effective civil disobedience campaign stemmed in large measure from…

Today’s One-Liner (#345)

Like an athlete who accepts  a grueling training regimen because she knows it will stretch her physical capabilities, the mystics accept hardship because they know from experience that trials draw out their best.  –Sri Eknath…

Being Interested

When a cowhand got on the bus at Hugo, and smiled at all of us in there, a whole busload of people, I knew that he was more interested in mankind than 10,000,000 New School…

All Too Human

Feeling alternately overwhelmed by his inability to comprehend and discuss the Holocaust yet charged with the awesome duty of recording it, [Yankev] Glatshteyn felt tempted at times to run—not towards his heritage, but away from…

An Easter Message

I found the following by Insurrection Barbie at X on Sunday… … I told my kids a different Easter story this morning. One that I think really matters. One that reflects my journey this year….

All-time Greats

By the novel of ideas I mean realist fiction, focused on the complexities of ­human psy­chol­ogy and the social conditions peculiar to a specific time and place, that tests theories by examining the sources of…

Agape

…when we choose to exercise an act of agape (unselfish love), we bring the real presence of Christ to the people we love. We become tubes into which Christ comes and through which Christ moves…