Canada sings its siren song…and I listen..and more
I’m heading to Canada in both October and November to speak at several conferences– perhaps if you are living in Banff or Calgary, we could meet for a cup of really black thick coffee and bannock bread with maple syrup. Or if you live near there and have suggestions for …
X is for Xenophobia
“Xenophobia looks like it is becoming the mass ideology of the 20th-century fin-de-siècle. What holds humanity together today is the denial of what the human race has in common.” -Eric J. Hobsbawm xenophobia [(zen-uh-foh-bee-uh, zee-nuh-foh-bee-uh)] An unreasonable fear, distrust, or hatred of strangers, foreigners, or anything perceived as foreign or …
W is for Wanderlust
“An Eskimo custom offers an angry person release by walking the emotion out of his or her system in a straight line across the landscape, the point at which the anger is conquered is marked with a stick, bearing witness to the strength or length of the rage.” – Lucy …
V is for Vacant
I received an email recently from someone who reads 37days, a writer I’m sure you will be hearing more of, a woman named Amy McCracken. She was responding to one of my recent alphabet posts, and in responding, shared a story of her own, one that moves and sways and …
T is for Them :: U is for Us
“All good people agree,And all good people say,All nice people, like Us, are WeAnd every one else is They.” -Rudyard Kipling, “A Friend of the Family” In the Big Human Equation—that primary equation by which we live (although we most likely refuse to acknowledge its simplicity) —there are only two …
S is for Short :: Significant
“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. …
Remembering Katrina
It has been two years since Hurricane Katrina. Let’s replace "they" with "we" with "I"as we remember what happened there, and as we look for ways to help in the continuing recovery. As I looked back on what I was writing when the hurricane struck, here is what I found: …
R is for Rightness
"Grasping at things can only yield one of two results: Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear. It is only a matter of which occurs first." –Goenka Sometimes, people irritate me. This week has been one of those weeks. Actually, I’ve been irritated for the …
Q is for Quiddity
“For a long time I couldn’t make out what Aquinas meant. He uses a figurative word (a very unusual thing for him) but I have solved it. Claritas is quidditas… This is the moment which I call epiphany. First we recognise that the object is one integral thing, then we …
