Sunday, 14 January 2018
A week ago I published “The Beautiful Farewell of Nancy Cathcart.” Yesterday Nancy died. In the intervening six days the essay was viewed nearly 4000 times on my website, eliciting uncountable expressions of thankfulness for Nancy.
There’s a sweet irony in the fact that I probably knew Nancy just about the least of all those who honored her with their words. Read More
If I had to condense all of life into one activity, it would be this: embracing the present moment, and responding to it with all the beauty we can muster.
By beauty I mean that which draws us in the direction of oneness, unity, kinship. The opposite of judgment.
To pull this off, of course, requires us to open one of life’s most precious gifts, the gift of choice. We must define for ourselves what, in fact, is going on. Then, we must determine what it means for us to respond in beauty.
These choices can be especially poignant when what we’ve determined is at hand is our death.
So it has been for Nancy Cathcart. And the beauty with which she has responded, if my experience is any measure, is enriching the lives of that big tent full of fortunate souls she considers her tribe. Read More
Jamaica holiday, right now.
These are three of my grandchildren. All teenagers. Two sisters. Three cousins. Each is a child of the heart of a lovely configuration of devoted adults.
They’ve known each other their whole lives, though they meet as a trio only a few times a year. Nothing diminishes their acceptance of one another, their love, their trust, their teasing. Whatever they might hide at this point in their life just doesn’t matter. When together they exude that rarest and most precious of energies. Joy. It’s infectious. Read More
I’d jump at the chance to take a slow boat to China with Greg Boyle. He has an inspired sense of the ultimate nature of things, and a laugh from downtown. Talk about playful, loving and deep.
Boyle is a Jesuit priest who has buried more than 200 young human beings he knows and loves, all killed because of gang violence. Killed by people he also knows and loves. Some 30 years ago, he founded Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, today the largest gang intervention, rehab and re-entry program on the planet. His second book was published recently. It’s titled “Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship.” The choir, to Boyle, is everyone who longs and aches to widen their “loving look” at what’s right in front of them. I’m glad I don’t have to pony up a fin every time I’ve underlined something I never want to forget. Read More
A door has been opened to an unprecedented awareness of uninvited sexual behavior, primarily by men toward women. How many of us walk through that door, and take meaningful action on what we discover, is the question before us.
At the moment, all sorts of highly visible men are being accused of some pretty toxic conduct, and are paying a hefty price in public condemnation, loss of employment, and maybe most importantly, loss of power.
While this response makes sense, it is also incomplete––if our intention long-term is to nurture healthier human relationships. Read More
"The push to change the words “nigger” and “injun” in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, because the so-called offensive nature of those terms might limit today’s readership and appreciation of that literary classic, is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we avoid taking responsibility for our feelings––and therefore miss the chance to become more awake, more whole, more useful friends to one another."
The Essay: The Gold in Niggers and Injuns
