Counter-the Culture

The highest way of living for those who take the tonsure is to aim to lack nothing while owning nothing. —Yoshida Kenkô, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney If you wish to possess everythingYou must…

Cheer Up: Reminders

Furnace. The first evening, about 5 o’clock, the pain from the extreme heat, exhaustion, and headaches make me completely lose control of my movements. I can’t lower the furnace damper. A coppersmith jumps up and…

Being Present (Somehow)

1. Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering.  Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world.  Find ways to be with those who…

Righteous, Remorseful Jews

As my 61st birthday approaches, I’ve noticed that I have recently been going back to authors and works I read many years ago.  For example, I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal, William D. Miller’s…

Correspondents

Proximity by Martín Zaldivar Hi Mark, … The last two years have been rough. New York City can be a very lonely place, and I miss my good friends, as well as the calmness of…

Trying To Stop the War

Shawn Francis Peters, The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era Johanna Hamilton, 1971: On the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI Shawn Francis Peters’ 2012 book is an account…

On Daniel Berrigan

1. Some of Daniel Berrigan’s Whitmanian multitudes:  Brother, uncle, jailbird, correspondent, chef, Jesuit, retreat master, playwright poet, peacemaker, mentor,  reader, teacher, prophet, son, friend, logophile. 2. In our age they they talk about the importance…