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ON STAGE
NOTE: My new book is here at last. It has been 16 years in the making, nine of which I have spent producing this blog. Since you have been following and reading my work which I appreciate, if you would like a copy Free of the Shadow for $10 (shipping included) rather than its list…
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A SOMBER CELEBRATION
Once again we celebrate a groupthat even most of its members wish wenever had to celebrate, wish there wasno need for, wish the very conceptof war was never realized or imagined.You have to pause and wonder why Godin his or her infinite wisdom allowedCain to kill Abel, allowed the seedsof greed to take purchase in…
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SOME SAY
Some say that we live our livesin ordinary time, fraught in a worldbeyond our comprehension, beyondour control, and not the ordinary timeof the church, which is now anything but ordinary as we must live it.People talk of the new normal as iffurious that abnormality can be normalizedby labeling it as such, rather than actingto return…
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A CHANCE MEETING
For two years we occupied the same spaceevery week for nine months each year, yetwe never met until thirty years later, at the homeof friends in common, and the realizationwas the source of surprise and humor.How could you inhabit the halls and studiosof a radio station, college but the worlddid not know that, at least…
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SPLIT
Setting apart, that is our skill:bifurcating, creating dualities.Is it that unity scares us, certaintyunavoidable, no room to escape,to deny, to invoke missing nuance?One of my religious heritagessays you remove head coveringson entering a sanctuary, the otherthat you put one on upon doing so.One says you are born a sinnerthe other says until a certain ageyou…
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MURDER
It is one thing to murder your little darlings, as writers like to say, but as a poet it is wholly another thing to murder your children, those you have raised from birth on the page, tended with care hoping they might one day leave home and find their place in the world. How do…
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WITHOUT EXCEPTION
The Jewish sages teach us thatwhoever saves one lifeit is as if he saves the world.Try though I might to find it,I cannot locate the exceptionfor those unfortunate enoughto live among others whocommit unspeakable acts,but surely there must be an exception.How else do you explain whytens of thousands of worldswere not saved in Gaza, why…
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JUST A THOUGHT
In a world that continues to spinwildly out of control, always threateningso shift off its axis to unknown ends,the faithful go merrily about their waywhile those who believe but doubtquestion why God does not simplydo away with evil, for that must surelyfall within His omnipotence, evilbanished by a Holy thought or two.What God would tell…
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MUSEUMS NO MORE
Travel guides always wantto send me to museums of art,of history, of culture, of science.I appreciate their guidance but Iwould prefer to spend my timevisiting zoos, looking at animalsand ignoring the placardspainfully detailing what I am seeing.I have been to countlessmuseums and while each offeredbeauty and knowledge, eachdemanded that I needed to learn,to interpret, to…
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THIS IS NOT: AN APOLOGY
This is an apology I never wantedor thought I would have to write butnow, my grandchildren, it is necessary. This is not the world I wantedto leave to you, what I had hopedwas a world at peace, a world whereyou could be anything without beingjudged or shunned, where wordshad meaning and books were treasures. Instead…
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an old writer and his words 