What is the extent of our capacity for imaginative empathy? When is it easy to put oneself in the place of other, and when is the stretch too far to manage?
I don’t have much trouble imagining how Henry Louis Gates felt earlier this week when he was arrested at the door of his own home.
I [...]
This is the first section of a talk I gave on 19 June 2009 at the National Summit of Ensemble Theaters, meeting at the University of San Francisco. Click here to download the full text.
I’ve just moved back to California, part of a big life-change for me. Whenever I come here, I touch down with [...]
I grew up in a house without many books. Each volume in the single short bookcase my family owned stands out in memory, I suppose because each one had to be singular in some way to earn its place, something like a cabinet of curiosities. By the time I left home at 17, the bookcase [...]
“It’s critical,” my wise friend said, “that you continue to advocate for what you want without allowing yourself to be shaped by the limitations around you.”
This is such a challenging idea, my head swims when I try to get a firm grip on it.
In the personal realm, it arises with great force. Despite all [...]
I haven’t had my driving-on-black-ice lesson yet. Weather conditions have been spectacularly cold, but there hasn’t been the right combination of temperature, precipitation and time off to open space for this particular learning experience—yet.
Everyone is happy to offer advice, though. They tell me to drive slowly, brake slowly and turn slowly, so as to [...]
Yom Kippur begins tonight. This holy day is the fulcrum of the Jewish year: in preparation, we do a cheshbon hanefesh—a soul inventory—cleaning up our conduct and relationships to ready ourselves for the moment tonight when the beautiful Kol Nidre prayer is chanted, annulling all vows, reminding us that in the deepest place, in the [...]
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve seen me quote before from the Reverend James Lawson’s founding statement of principles for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee well over forty years ago. What SNCC was seeking, Lawson wrote, was “a social order or justice permeated by love.” This has become one of many mnemonics lodged in [...]
Do you know that Billie Holiday song, “Good Morning Heartache”? Lady Day’s lyrics personify the misery she feels at losing her lover, casting pain as her constant companion.
Good morning, fear.
I can’t pretend to know how life delivers comeuppance, let alone why, but I’m dogged by the feeling that I am getting mine now. [...]
With timing I’d like to claim as atypical but is probably the opposite, we are trying to sell our house. That puts me somewhere near the bleeding edge of the rather remarkable shakeout we are now experiencing. The image that keeps coming to me is a Gargantuan dog arising from slumber, noisily shaking itself awake, [...]
I wrote this on the plane home after a week on the road, so grateful I wasn’t booked on American Airlines that my good cheer was barely dented by a late departure and the fact that the passenger in front of me reclined her seat so far, I couldn’t quite see the screen of my [...]
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