In the waning light of the Buck Moon, let us read and reflect together on Thomas Merton’s moment of enlightenment at the corner of Fourth and Walnut (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander). What is a…
Liz is generous enough to host a “Merton Hour” for us to be better acquainted with the prolific and prophetic monk Thomas Merton. Details soon!
With luddite pipe dreams, I struggle in general with living in an increasingly technological, frenzied, and noisy world, and in specific with taking my first year of graduate classes on Zoom. In the midst of…
This Is What I Can Do When it comes to righteous indignation Reshma makes Arundhati Roy seem timid At a public reading of The Book of Mev I made sure she went last and read…
We Know In that spring semester courseThere were 40 studentsThe official limit was 35But I let more in Before starting The Book of MevI asked“How many of youHave known someone— A family memberA friend, a…
Appreciation is the sacrament. —Allen Ginsberg Another class is finished…the autumn one entitled “Facing the Future: Resources for a Rebirth of Wonder” “Rebirth of wonder” comes from lines in a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem— “I am…
Thanks to Liz Burkemper, for passing this along.
I first learned of Gary Snyder through Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums, where he was fictionalized as “Japhy Ryder,” who, according to Alvah Goldbook [aka Allen Ginsberg], was “a great new hero of American…
Ben and Liz Burkemper, father and daughter, are fascinated by the figure of Thomas Merton — a prolific writer, Trappist monk, poet, prophet, peace and civil rights activist, theologian, and mystic. Fresh from the latest…