In Praise of Fairuz
While on my walk The soft, tender voice of Fairuz was borne to me on the breeze As if coming from an ethereal howdah: “One day we shall return to our neighborhood….” Fairuz’s voice, in…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
A New Journal for a New Year
My friend Emily Guck sent me the following… Today is a day for a new journal. I’ll remember these words as I seek to fill it this year–Thanks, Dr. C! “Dear Emily- When the time…
Share the Wealth: Soldiers’ Stories
There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you. -Zora Neale Hurston Last July at Fatimas’s, Chris Wallach did a Share the Wealth on her father’s experiences in World War II. She read…
We Inter-Are
“What is one’s personality, detached from that of the friends with whom fate happens to have linked one? I cannot think of myself apart from the influence of the two or three greatest friendships of…
Metta Meditation/122
May Eileen be filled with loving-kindness (for her family and dry-cleaner personnel) May Eileen be well (in body and spirit) May Eileen be peaceful and at ease (upon rising in the morning and turning in…
A Doctor and a Child: Christmas Eve in Managua
Fernando Silva ran the children’s hospital in Managua. On Christmas Eve, he worked late into the night. Firecrackers were exploding and fireworks lit up the sky when Fernando decided it was time to leave. They…
Always Mantain only a Joyful Heart
Dear Chris, Thanks to you, I now have the following favorite Alice Walker poems from The World Will Follow Joy: Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit Democratic Womanism Hope to Sin Only in the Service…
Contemporaries
“Who are my contemporaries?” Juan Gelman asks himself. Juan says that sometimes he comes across [people] who smell of fear, in Buenos Aires, Paris, or anywhere in the world, and feels that these [people] are…
The Slow and the Rich
“I want to do things like that that seem to me to be about creating a space where people can kick back, eat, laugh, tell stories, be comfortable, and by extension send that vibration across…