Sumud

A Message from Dr. Zeina Kiblawi: Finally made it to our hotel, after a 7 hour detainment and repeated (insulting and meaningless) interrogations at Tel Aviv airport. Apparently, the desire to help Palestinian neonates is…

Then and Now

Why had I never noticed the number of sick who appear in the Gospels? Who or what made them sick? Political oppression, legal degradation, economic plunder, and religious neutrality …. Extreme misery prevailed within this…

Postscript

Dear Bella Levenshteyn. I just wrote you a love letter. Stamped and licked the envelope. I loved writing it. Loved thinking about you. Loved thanking you. Love that a pol-sci major has become such a…

Consider the Source

The Pentagon will gladly supply, on request, such information as the quantity of ordnance expended in Vietnam. From 1965 through 1969 this amounts to about 4.5 million tons by aerial bombardment. This is nine times…

Monkey Mind

Dear Bella Levenshteyn Do you ever have one of those days When you swing from wanting One thing to another Days like I seem to have with such frequency I know for sure I’m meshugah…

Reasons of State Or Reasons of Memory

First published in The Ecumenist, 1997.   Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory:  The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum. New York:  Penguin USA, 1995. $27.95, U.S.A; $36.99, Canada.   Throughout this spring, there have been several…

Tao of Writing

“When you accept writing as what you are supposed to do, after you’ve tried everything else–marriage, hippiedom, traveling, living in Minnesota or New York, teaching, spiritual practices–there’s finally no place to go.” –Natalie Goldberg, Writing…

Compromismo, 1983

I came across this excerpt  from a 1983 statement  from Brazilian Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga in response to a request from the Salvadoran Human Rights Commission on behalf of Salvadoran refugee children. This statement reminds me of the commitment of…