The longer I am privileged to live, the more astounded I am at the yawning gap between our own conscious intentions and the things that drive our actions. We humans like stories that add up, so we tend to craft neat parables of cause and effect to explain ourselves. But every effect has unlimited possible …
A wise friend reminded me yesterday that the lotus grows from putrefaction. Everywhere we look, nature teaches this lesson, that new hope rises only where something has been destroyed. This has been a difficult time for me. In typical generational fashion, an apropos song lyric has been braiding itself into my thoughts, jutting into awareness …
On Friday, I went to rottentomatoes.com to check out the reviews for several films we were thinking about seeing. They all had high scores, meaning most reviewers loved them. But in every case, if you scrolled down far enough, there would be one or two writers who rated them “superficial pap” or something like it. …
The last six months have been some of the most interesting of my life as a writer and speaker. Since New Creative Community was published in November, I’ve been visiting conferences and campuses, giving talks and workshops to artists, activists, funders, policy-makers and students. I’ve met hundreds of people, seen all kinds of work, had …
I’m on the road a lot these days (catch me in Philadelphia next month), which gives me the opportunity to consume media products I don’t seem to have time (or appetite) for at home. Last week at the University of Oregon I watched “The Today Show” each morning as I dressed. The entire time I …
What does it take to heal social trauma? Like a lot of Jews of her generation, my maternal grandmother (may she rest in peace) was so repelled by all things German that she refused even to ride in a Volkswagen. She’d emigrated to this country long before World War II, but when that war was …
Life brings me many opportunities to talk with people who are serious about their work in the world, work that almost always involves some form of healing. Their lives are very different, but their dilemmas are often the same. Almost all of the teachers, therapists, community artists and activists I meet torture themselves about whether …
My husband is a dedicated world-fixer. He is constantly aware of new ways our given reality could be improved. Take a ten-minute drive with him, for instance. I guarantee that before time is up, he will have articulated a need and supplied a proposal to fill it. “What were they thinking,” he’ll ask, “when they …
What holds us to the past? Being on vacation has given me the perfect laboratory to investigate that question. It’s perfect because for me, vacation time is free space. None of the figures who populate my past are present. My mementoes and reminders are all at home. No one is making demands. Except for my …
The vacation trip I’m on was planned to coincide with my birthday on the 16th, but I’m not going to tell you which one it is. I guess vanity is the typical reason for withholding one’s age, but in truth, it’s vanity that usually makes me volunteer my age. That’s been my most effective way …