We have entered Eastertide, the liturgical season beginning with Easter and ending 50 days later on Pentecost (also known as Whitsunday). The formulation of this season parallels the period in Judaism between the first day of Pesach (Passover, marking their…
Memory and mandate: A meditation on Maundy Thursday
Under the sway of Easter bunnies, chocolate binges and spring fashion sales, Holy Week and Resurrection Morning observances have shed almost all connections to the volatile political events in Jerusalem leading up to Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into the city. The…
Going public with Lent’s call to penitence
“Concealment makes the soul a swamp. Confession is how you drain it.” —Charles M. Blow They have treated the wound of my people carelessly. They acted shamefully, they committed abomination, yet they did not know how to blush. —Jeremiah 6:14-15…
Meditation on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
I can almost smell the acrid, thick smoke of diesel engines powering Russian tanks, personnel carriers and trucks hauling heavy artillery into two eastern provinces of Ukraine’s border with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the two provinces as “independent…
Opportunities to apply the slight weight of our convictions
Recently I forwarded the social media link to an article detailing the ways religious piety was intertwined with the violent uprising at our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. My ever-thoughtful friend Susan responded with this question: “Scary. How is…
Let’s put Herod back into Christmas
In 1936, with war clouds gathering in Europe, author E.B. White wrote the following for The New Yorker: “Shopping in Woolworth’s, in the turbulent days, we saw a little boy put his hand inquiringly on a ten-cent Christ child, part…
Angel wings and devil tails: Meditation on the Feast of the Holy Innocents
“This is no time for a child to be born, With the Earth betrayed by war and hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out and the sun burns late.” —Madeleine L’Engle, “The Risk of…
Accountability for the execution of Ahmaud Arbery: More is needed
I pounded the arm of my chair as each of the jury decisions, nine counts in all, were read by the judge in the case of the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial. The triggerman was found guilty of all counts. The…
Veterans (Armistice) Day history and the prophetic import of red poppies
Veterans Day doesn’t lend itself to commercial attention like its twin, Memorial Day, probably because it’s squeezed between two other cash-registering holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it does not coincide with a car-cultural observance like the Indy 500 auto race….
How to read the Cuban street protests in light of U.S.-Cuba history
Medieval European maps traced the outline of the entirety of past exploration, and just outside the bounds of what was known they inscribed the words, “Here Be Dragons.” Here Be Dragons is an appropriate mythological metaphor for the United States…
Vote, or don’t. The issues are larger than elections
Elections are but the end result of an advocacy for the common good that starts in each watershed. Imagine a different future, find collaborators and spend yourself extravagantly.
Bombs and balm
Recently declassified documents confirmed what many had long suspected, that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet ordered the 1976 assassination of former diplomat Orlando Letelier, along with his colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffit, in Washington, DC. This news is of especially personal…