Doug Anderson: Morning Prayer
I am an eternal innocent: I believe in love,
I believe in the ability of human beings
to transcend their repetitive ignorance.
Bernie Sanders: Will Defeating the Oligarchs Be Easy? Of Course Not
If there was ever a moment when progressives needed to communicate our vision to the people of our country, this is that time. Despair is not an option.
Jim Daniels: Ghost Guns
Plush Jesus dolls scattered
on the picked-over discount table
at the dollar store
Abby Zimet: He Practiced the Good
We pay homage to Jimmy Carter, a profoundly decent man, who taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service.
Charles Davidson: Reflections on “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” (the Movie and the Man)
Despite the film’s deficiencies, excesses, and flagrant exploitation by those willing to corrupt Bonhoeffer to their own sinister purposes, there is something to be said for the film’s implied warning about the rising tide of authoritarianism in America.
Chana Bloch: The New World
That’s the old country for you:
they ate with their hands, went hungry to bed,
slept in their stink. When pain knocked,
they opened the door.
Dennis Wilson Wise: The woman who revolutionized the fantasy genre is finally getting her due
Arthur C. Clarke called her the “most brilliant editor I ever encountered,” and Philip K. Dick said she was the “greatest editor since Maxwell Perkins.”
Cecilia Zavala: Pardon Me | Ending the Stigma That Harms Generations
When we reduce people to their convictions, we fail to see their humanity, their potential, and the harm this judgment causes not just to them but to their families.
Charles Reznikoff: The lamps are burning in the synagogue
Let us begin then humbly. Not by asking:
Who is This you pray to? Name Him;
define Him. For the answer is:
we do not name Him.
Once out of a savage fear, perhaps;
now out of knowledge—of our ignorance.
William Butler Yeats: The Magi
Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky
Barbara Hamby: Ode to the ‘Messiah’, Thai Horror Movies, and Everything I Can’t Believe
When I decide to go to hear Handel’s Messiah in London
at the composer’s parish church, my husband says
he’d rather see a Thai horror movie, so we plan to meet later
at our favorite Moroccan lair
Ted Olson: Bob Dylan and the creative leap that transformed modern music
Sixty years ago, on Halloween Night 1964, a 23-year-old Dylan took the stage at New York City’s Philharmonic Hall. He had become a star within the niche genre of revivalist folk music. But by 1964 Dylan was building a much larger fanbase through performing and recording his own songs.
Darnell Arnoult: This Too Is Creation & Work
Moonlight freely wants its glory,
holy howling eyes singing
heaven’s blues.
Baron Wormser: Striving with a God
In his best poems, something elemental is occurring – the clash between a lone life and the accrued verity of socialized watchfulness, the adages that are spoken without a second thought.
