My Canadian friends and I were huddled together in hope, glued to CNN, when, a few minutes after 8 pm Pacific Time, the results put Barack Obama over the line and into the presidency. I felt something lift off my shoulders: a weight of shame called George W. Bush that had been lodged there so …
I’m in another airport, this time headed to Canada for a speaking engagement. I will be there on election night. I am planning rejoice in the company of North Americans who want regime change here just as much as I do. Every day brings news of the world’s interest in seeing Barack Obama elected U.S. …
“This time”—my friend stood over a sinkful of dirty dishes, a stricken expression on her face—”I’m voting as if my life depended on it.” Extreme energies of hope and fear are rising and ricocheting over every city and town in the nation. I wish there were a way to harness a forcefield of this magnitude: …
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 …
Judging from my friends’ reactions (and the level of unrest in the Blogosphere and Punditstan), Sarah Palin’s nomination has unleashed a tidal wave of fear and despair large enough to sweep defeat from the jaws of victory—unless we can master this reactivity and get on with winning the election.
I recorded the several hours of the Democratic Party convention broadcast on PBS each night, then fast-forwarded through the pundification that occupied perhaps a third of each program, stopping to listen to all the speeches. On the first evening, I was aware of so many sensations in my body: my heart lifted, but with difficulty, …
All the media world’s a-twitter about the New Yorker cover caricaturing Barack and Michelle Obama as the right’s terrorist nightmare: fist-bumping in mideast mufti in the Oval Office, burning the flag, a portrait of Osama bin Laden over the fireplace, a machine-gun slung across Michelle’s broad shoulder. McCain denounced the cover and Obama defended the …
One reason I keep feeling we have an opportunity to change course right now has less to do with politics than with the convergence of science and philosophy. Human beings have always been interested in our own motives, in how our minds work. Introspection helps, but research is teaching us a good deal more about …
Have you ever had one of those scary ah-hah moments? Hurtling along the freeway or gazing out the window of a jet plane, suddenly coming to consciousness: Ohmigod, I’m in a metal capsule going much too fast to stop, surrounded by other metal capsules piloted by who knows what! This is crazy! All in a …