This has been a week of collecting horror stories of behavior by people who seem to utterly lack a moral compass. As a friend of mine said, “Sometimes the world offends me.” But is it true? Are some people entirely lacking, without moral conscience in the way that someone might be born without wisdom teeth, …
I’m in the midst of a long-term research project on the topic of love. It started months ago, when my use of the word in the context of culture and politics evoked discomfort on the part of some academic and philanthropic readers. In the contexts where these questions arose, the word “love” isn’t much used, …
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 …
One of the best things about the busy, confusing time in which we live is that the more we learn through science, the more the truths of Spirit are revealed. Read on to learn how to join people around the world on Friday, December 22nd, Solstice Day, in celebrating this delightful convergence. The Global Consciousness …
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? …
I’m not much of a believer. The notion of belief incorporates a leap of faith: we don’t “believe in” gravity or the beating of our hearts; instead, we know these things through observation. Rather than believing, my interest is in noticing, whether what I notice confounds received beliefs or reinforces them. Here’s something I noticed …
I spent Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) with my Jewish Renewal community, a cohort that prizes creative liturgy, ecstatic chant, guided meditation and socially conscious sermons—just my style. Because one intention of the holiday is to turn toward life and away from whatever embitters it, many of the leaders talked about the terrible suffering …
I’ve been chewing over a problem—an especially tough esthetic-political-spiritual problem—and I wonder if you can help. Let me explain. Whether you look at the news or at the new TV season, at the local multiplex or the art gallery, at the nightclub or the bookstore, there’s no denying that our culture is generating boundless imagery …
Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, begins Friday night. As readers know, I’ve been working on my cheshbon hanefesh—soul accounting—in preparation for the deep rituals of t’shuvah—reorientation—that mark the period of the High Holy Days. One part of that work requires searching my heart and mind for knots of unfinished business: do I need to …