One of the things I do in my work is to serve as a reviewer for scholarly manuscripts that social science researchers submit to academic journals – vying for one of the coveted publication spots so necessary for advancing in higher education professions. Hmmm. Well first, let’s go back and take a look at that sentence. The one I just wrote and you just read. Its message could easily invoke a yawn. … Read More
On Friday I had the opportunity to speak briefly with a small group of friends and colleagues about social justice. It was a time that qualifies for sure as a moment in the story of my life. And the particular narrative of that time is transition – big transition – so big that I’m not yet prepared to write about it here. Odd, since this is the place I write and… Read More
So, one of the features of being human is having a body. You may have noticed. Related to that is necessity, both climactic and social, of finding ways to cover, to clothe. The practical act of clothing keeps people from freezing in winter and can provide a bit of cooling in the heat of summer. The social act if covering the body may most joyously take on artistry with adornment being a… Read More
Earth Day. Two days after 4/20. A week since the Boston Marathon Explosion. Ten days since the Senate voted against background checks for gun purchases. Pedantic as it may sound, if it weren’t for the Earth, none of these other things would have a place to happen. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter how it sounds – it’s simply so. Without Earth, marijuana would not grow, humans would not… Read More
So this is a photo of transition. Transition from winter to spring, from dawn to day and, as my photographer friends have taught me, this brief period when the angle of the sun rays relative to the surface of our planet is just so is also a transition they call sweet light. So here you have it. Daffodils just past dawn in sweet light on a day in my life when change is… Read More
On Wednesday of last week I heard a story. It was a story of a little boy, a four-year-old skipping and playing and laughing because he had completed two chemo-therapy treatments and for the first time in almost as long as he could remember, he didn’t feel icky. He felt great! Despite his cancer, and almost as if he’d forgotten he had it, he wanted to jump and run and swing with… Read More
In a week of exceptions — a meteorite crashing through an otherwise ordinary Russian sky, a Pope resigning for the first time in 600 years – an unlikely story of a racist street fighter turned modest-but-powerful spiritual teacher beloved by people of all walks of life seems right in line. For context, I’ll tell you about this picture. This is the sunrise earlier this month over a mountain in southern India. Surrounding… Read More
There are a lot of things that could be said about right now, today, December 31, 2012. For starters, we in the Northern Hemisphere are in the darkest time of year. In Portland, Oregon the days are short, and most often gray and wet. Nonetheless, we, like all of us, are in a great series of collectively signified moments that invite suspension of despair and the joyful tending of possibility. On December… Read More
Here on the eve of what Christians recognize as the day for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ – here on this 24th day of what people all across the globe know, each in her or his own language, as December – here in the moments of reading these words on this page is the source of the idea — holy. In the mystery of one moment passing to the next I want… Read More
It’s the end of the day, and unlike most days between November and July the sky outside my window is vivid with sunset colors – you know those indescribable shades of pink and purple, hints of orange, red, yellow, even bits of green. I’m in Portland, OR where I live and work – and walk and dance and chit chat with neighbors and laugh and cry with friends. Today I’ve done all… Read More
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