On 3 April, the powers-that-be at Howard University laid off 84 staff members, including E. Ethelbert Miller, director of Howard University’s African American Resource Center, who attended Howard and went on to serve the university community for more than 40 years. Ethelbert is a literary activist of wide-ranging commitments and honors: he chairs the Board …
Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish won the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award this week. I have nothing to say about the book, since I haven’t yet read it. The writer’s name gave rise to my subject. Reading it released a memory rush that’s been cycling just behind my eyes ever since. The author’s …
Last Friday, on the first night of Passover, I was asked to share a teaching on Moses, who led our people out of slavery in Egypt. A friend suggested I share it with you: The idea that always arises for me when I think of Moses and many other leaders of spiritual or political revolutions …
My favorite epigram is from Voltaire: the perfect is the enemy of the good. I like the way it encapsulates a deep truth, that nothing is perfect, that fault can always be found, that often doing one’s imperfect best is what matters. Sometimes I feel really discouraged that so much of the U.S. progressive movement …