Want to watch a movie? How about watching with friends in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro at the same time? Starting at 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, 10 May, 2008, Pangea Day will be celebrated with a four-hour program of short films and music. It will be screened in …
I’ve been a cultural activist all my life, so where I stand on the question of culture is clear: with Augustin Girard when he wrote more than 30 years ago that “Culture concerns everyone and it is the most essential thing of all, as it is culture that gives us reason for living, and sometimes …
This is the text of a talk I gave on September 12th, the first night of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, at the Aquarian Minyan in Berkeley. When Rabbi Diane Elliot asked me to speak on the Minyan’s High Holy Days theme of love and community, I felt so challenged I knew I had …
Did you miss me? I missed you: I’ve been traveling pretty much nonstop since the beginning of July, and am glad to be home (in body at least—my spirit needs to complete the journey through nine time zones). I had speaking engagements in Barcelona and London, and in between, vast conversations about culture and politics. …
This is the text of my keynote address at the annual conference of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. It was delivered on 3 November 2006. The great evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane once was asked what a study of creation could teach us about the nature of God. His answer? …
In 1963, when I was a junior in high school, the late, great Nina Simone released a powerfully angry song called “Mississippi Goddam.” “The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam,” the song began, “And I mean every word of it.” Here’s the last stanza: You don’t have to live next to me Just give …
Monday’s New York Times carried a story of epochal significance: the town pool of Stonewall, Mississippi, which had been filled with dirt to avoid integrating it in the 1970s, is being excavated and reopened for the benefit of the entire community, black and white. More than 20 years ago, my partner and I were hired …
It seems even the basic lessons, the things we feel we know as well as our own names, have to be refreshed from time to time. I’ve been preaching the healing powers of dialogue all my adult life, so I’m a little taken aback to find myself amazed that it turns out to be true! …
A couple of weeks ago in an essay entitled Eros and Spirit,” I wrote about a sad and painful situation vexing the progressive Jewish community. After many accusations, a rabbi admitted to a long history of abuse of power in clandestine sexual relationships, leaving his pulpit and pledging to seek healing. The leaders of the …
This is the third in a series of essays about bridging the distance between generations of artists who use their gifts in the service of community, of social healing and of social justice. In the first two essays, I wrote with longing about my memory of connecting with mentors in the sixties, about the relationships …