From Antigone to Thich Nhat Hanh

Teach us to care and not to care…T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday Over the years when reading Sophocles’ Antigone, I tended to see her as the conscientious heroine, standing alone against her uncle Creon, the brutal…

One to One

Emerson never wrote for groups or classes or institutions; his intended audience was always the single hearer or reader. –Robert Richardson, Emerson: The Mind on Fire, xii

Writing and Reading Inter-Are/1

When a man writes from his own mind, he writes very rapidly.  The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library…

Today’s One-Liner (#20)

Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a twelve-month hence. –Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell,  The Life of Samuel Johnson 

Show Up Already

Even if you lack all faith, simply to seat yourself before an image, hold a rosary and take up a sutra book is to perform a virtuous act, however perfunctory, even seated on your meditation…

Start Where We Are

Why exactly is sudden transformation according to a model impossible? The same question can be asked about individuals: why c­an’t someone just become what she admires? Disgusted with her life, Tolstoy’s Kitty, as we have…