A University Can Ruin You
Activist Abbie Hoffman on his father: “Until the day he died, he always blamed Brandeis for my corruption, be it divorce, dope, hippies, or schvartzes, he always ended up cursing Brandeis.”
There’s a Difference
Last night, twenty of us gathered to discuss Mev’s The Struggle is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation. People ranged in age from 20 to 65; some of us knew Mev personally, others had read…
An Inspiring Evening by Jenn Reyes Lay
I was once again inspired and on fire this evening from the beautiful collection of stories from Brazil compiled by Mev Puleo entitled The Struggle Is One. Gathering with many who have also been touched by…
One Person Can Change Everything for Us/1
Somebody holds the mirror up Unlocks the door Something jerks it open and you’re shoved in And your head has to go into a different place Sometimes it takes a certain somebody To make you…
Freedom
Month off between semesters 14-hour days Smiling at mile 18 of marathon Straining to do five pushups “We are pleased to accept you as a Corps member” “We are unable to take many qualified candidates”
Our Wars
On David Harris, Our War (Random House, 1996) Today there exist tremendous and unprecedented possibilities for knowing the reality of our world just as it is, with all that it has in it of anti-kingdom…
An Unpayable Debt
Upon beginning Martha Hess’s book, Then the Americans Came: Voices from Vietnam, I was immediately reminded of my late wife Mev Puleo who embarked on a similar project at about the same time as Hess….
Deep Listening
“I’m sorry. We Americans have never taken responsibility for what we did.” –Lady Borton Lady Borton worked for the American Friends Service Committee in South Vietnam from 1969-1971. A decade later, she assisted Vietnamese boat…
Hedy & Heine
The year after Mev died I read a lot of literature– Poetry, novels, plays One volume I took refuge in Was a bi-lingual edition of Heine’s Songs of Love & Grief I have a favorite…
Good Citizens/1
Dear Friends in the Sangha, I first encountered The Miracle of Being Awake (later published as The Miracle of Mindfulness) in 1982, when a monk from the Abbey of Gethsemani gave me a mimeograph of…