Gurus: A Poem
I set out on a day-hike, and somehow wound up in the Valley of Suffering. Guess who I met there? You. The Ganges and Amazon have nothing…
Now What’s the Matter?
Now what’s the matter? I thought, in the still-dark kitchen with my water glass hearing a recurring noise like a creak in my seventy-year-old house. But after…
Looking for the Perfect Present
In a bookstore, searching for a gift, the book that will never be forgotten— but everything can be forgotten. In a forest, therefore, looking for the confusion…
The Wisteria Bush
Because of a welcoming new guest inside him whose loving he adopts as his own with gratitude, this year, after living with his wisteria bush and its…
The Annunciation
1 The angel leans on one knee, right palm and two fingers raised in blessing, the skirts of his red robe flow behind him, his wings stand…
Prayer: A Poem
Lord of anxiety and small troubles, Lord of desolate mornings, I have insulted the wind and sun; forgive me. Lord of defensive motionlessness, I have slighted the…
Trust: A Poem
is a faith in the fact of the body, the fact to be entered and known until body and impulse are coherent for love, and steadfast breathing…
A Visit to the Planetarium: A Poem
In the daft heaven of the planetarium, stars and galaxies streaked away from us expanding in multiples of ten ad infinitum, while a…
Winter Solstice: A Poem
I am sixty-six years old, there is no cure for that. Another winter solstice observed and waved off, the days are brief, and icy. Meister Eckhart, I…
Mary Magdalene: A Poem
And when the fits were on me I wanted to abandon myself, strike my foot on a new mountain, sacrifice my voice. In me, the bride led…
History and Human Equality
Every person has been nourished by particular linguistic and cultural traditions, shaped by living in definite locales, and feels most at home in a specific social milieu…
Ideology and Human Equality
The refusal to understand human equality is a refusal to attend to and understand certain spiritual data in the consciousness of the thinker. Intelligence (sometimes the high…
Understanding Human Equality
Human equality cannot be discovered through visual observation of the world. Nor can it be verified by inspecting measurements that correlate data collected on human achievements or…
The Importance of Understanding Human Equality
Although respect for equal human dignity is an inspiration for many, it is still politically and culturally a frail growth needing constant protection. One of the greatest…
Dignity, Democracy, and Mythos
References to dignity (human dignity, personal dignity) are a constant in our cultural life, especially in journalism and politics. Overuse has unfortunately rendered the term rather shopworn, its value…