I was reminded in an email exchange with my daughter, Becca, of this Rilke poem describing an indescribable experience. I see it as what we would say (if we could say anything), when we become aware that our day-to-day life is too small to accomodate our Self. My life is…

Kudos to Al Gore for making an accessible and passionate presentation of what’s happening to our planet and for dropping the petulant, whiny flatness that characterized his campaign for the presidency, but he leaves out one very large fact that is really just too depressing to think about: The population…

Many people, from George Orwell to George Carlin, have pointed out how governments twist language to suit their purposes. The Bush administration has invented so many euphemisms for its policies and blunders over the past six years, it is, alternately wicked funny and hard to notice them anymore. Strange though…

Sometimes a man stands up during supper and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking, because of a church that stands somewhere in the East. And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead. And other man, who remains inside his own house, stays there, inside the dishes…

A very simple, very beautiful story is told in this hour long video made up mostly of 16 millimeter film shot by Richard Proenneke, who left a mind-numbing assembly line job after almost losing his eyesight, and built, by hand, with no power other than his own, a simple, one-room…

This is an essay drawn from a half dozen or so blog entries made while at the Lancaster Spa. For a variety of reasons, none of which seemed very inspiring as I prepared to leave, I decided to spend the week of my fiftieth birthday in Fairfield, Iowa at an…

Over the past year, two friends had at it on my website about Christianity, evolution, Buddhism and the belief in eternal damnation. One of them, Kyle, a deeply religious man, believes in the existence of hell for those who die before or without embracing Jesus Christ. The other, Bob, was…

Think religious people are humorless. Think again. I don’t know who assembles these or what liberties they do or don’t take, but they’re fun to read. — The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. — Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large…

There are some weird layers to this. The guy’s named Haggard, which is an adjective that means worn out, gaunt, emaciated and exhausted. There is the ridiculous notion the Pastor himself put out there: that he purchased meth because he was curious, but he didn’t try it. Sure Ted, curious…

Last summer, at dinner, my dad, who’s 72, said that this administration will soon be viewed as the worst in a hundred years of American history. He described watching in a kind of mystified horror as Bush led our country and the world backwards in foreign, economic, and social policies,…