Remember–Longing, Too, Is Impermanent
To a man who said we should meet, even if it were only for a single time Even if I now saw you Only once, I would long for you Through worlds, Worlds. –Izumi Shikibu…
The Good News of Giving and Receiving Books, 6.26.2017
Ten years ago, because of a Social Justice theology class, I got to know Melissa Banerjee, a Bengali-American. It made sense to me to give her a hardback edition of the The Gospel of Sri…
Mistake
Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore infuriated some Vietnam veterans with his early May tweet that the U.S. should have national holiday on the date of the fall of Saigon, which should lead to “a commitment to…
Mistake
Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore infuriated some Vietnam veterans with his early May tweet that the U.S. should have national holiday on the date of the fall of Saigon, which should lead to “a commitment to…
Rachel’s Parenting Life
Rachel Kell is doing an on-line class with me (on Thich Nhat Hanh!). We had Social Justice class in spring 2003. I asked her how her parenting life is going, after hearing Kate Heidemann Vandergriff…
The Best Minds of My Generation: For Rob Trousdale and Lindsey Trout Hughes
Re: Allen Ginsberg, The Best Minds of My Generation:A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan Dear Rob and Lindsey, I’m grateful to you both for sharing your writing with me and through…
Call Me by My True Names
35 years ago today, I participated in the mass demonstration in New York City against nuclear arms. While there, I heard Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh read aloud this English translation of one of…
Seeing the World/1 [from The Book of Mev]
The second week of that Summer Program at Maryknoll, Mev made an announcement after one of the morning sessions that she was going to present some of her photographs in a slideshow/meditation on a night…
Good Clean Fun
My friend Te Martin shared this photo of a Diane di Prima broadside she encountered on her travels…
The Beatitude of Playing Bach
Arnold Steinhardt, Violin Dreams, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006 Like the hundreds of other people who had gathered at Saint Pius V Church for Dan Horkheimer’s funeral last August, I was moving between despair and disbelief…