Compassion

for Miriam Some wounds, old wounds, with their ragged edges, with their hardened skin, never fully heal.   We sat in the dimmed living room, lights twinkling on the tree, listening to Christmas music, and she said, “My mother loved this time of year.”   I caught...

I was in the middle of a long training swim one afternoon, preparing for a triathlon, feeling pressured to complete the session, already thinking ahead to the impossible list of things I had to...

From the Book RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War By William T. Hathaway RADICAL PEACE, recently published by Trine Day, is a collection of reports from peace activists in the USA, Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan. A seminarian contributed...

“I don’t know what to do, I’ve tried everything!” This technical problem had been going on for a few days and I was totally stumped.  Solving technical problems is what I do all day...

I. Bruised Did you bump into something—a table’s edge or a low bench? That’s a nasty one: bluish-purple with greenish-yellow. More than a week’s time, still fading. I am delicate, easily bruised, like a peach left on the counter to ripen.   II. Scarred After the last time, I waited eight...

There is a certain feeling I get when I look into a person's eyes and see immediately the depth of their soul. It is peaceful and inviting and the eyes truly are the windows...

"We've always had wars. Humans are a warring species. Without an army to defend us, someone will always try to conquer us." These assumptions have become axioms of our culture. They generate despair but also...

  We admire some authors not only because of their writings but also because of the human being these writings reveal. It quickly becomes clear from reading the essays in Zichronot/Memories what an intelligent, humane,...

god is the between of an i and a thou, and it is precisely this existential dialogue with all that exists, our "essential deed" as buber called it, that which we repress within us...