A Report on the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Category: Essays
Many things in the Philokalia are said about “passions.” This word has not quite the same meaning as it has in ordinary language […]
Dreams and art are the smoke signals connecting the one tribe over time. Stories and myths do the same. Often we are so greatly taxed by circumstance that we lose the larger view of time and how we are always related, not only to those around us but to those who came before us and…
A Hebrew Myth, a potent element in the annals of the bees, tells us that when a child is born an angel takes it under his wing and recites the Torah to it. Having done that he puts his forefinger on the infant lip and says one word, “Forget!” Clearly, every tradition has a similar…
“Here we have the ground zero cafe,” says Bart Ives, gesturing toward a white frame building standing in the open center courtyard of the Pentagon.
“The institution of Living National Treasures was started in the fifties–when Japan’s machine culture was preparing to overtake ours–barely a hundred years after the West had forced the opening up of its insular, agricultural society. The title “Living National Treasure” implies more than mere homage paid to excellence in the traditional crafts. It is just…
One morning last October, I experienced a moment of grace. It happened as I was walking my black Labrador retriever, Shadow, on one of those warm autumn days when everything looks edged in gold. But I was shuffling along like a waif in a storm because I had just learned that a project I had…
In terms of interconnections, a dominant theme in all Native American cultures is that of relationship, or a series of relationships that are always reaching further and further out; relationships within the immediate family reaching out to the extended family, to the band, outward again to the clan, to the tribal group; and relationships do…
Mindfulness and the roots of war
“Religion isn’t for me,” announced my eight-year-old daughter, Alexandra, as we ate dinner together one January night. “I think of it like an old spider on the wall. I know that it’s there but I try to ignore it.” Alexandra took a bite of pasta and studied my reaction. “When I pray it’s usually just…