I would not have received the Buddhist training that I did over these past thirty years if it had not been for the love and compassion of two Catholic priests. In 1982, a friend of mine fished me out of a house where I had been living with ten other…
The holiday season here is nearing a close. Millions of American children are already ignoring the many gifts that they received for Christmas. Young people everywhere are texting each other making plans for New Year’s Eve. It has been a great year for the consumer establishment — the best retail…
In 1915, any sense of romanticism regarding the Great War had disappeared from the minds of Europeans as the conflict that came to be known as World War I reached horrifying heights of cruelty and barbarism. Gas warfare was introduced to Poland in that year. Aircraft were used for the…
We see it everywhere. There is the striking image of Adriana Lima, famous for modeling for Victoria’s Secret. Tens of thousands of girls desperate to be loved and admired would do anything to be her. Including starve themselves to death. Actually, they have no idea what it is to be…
It is a thematic question frequently asked in literature and movies: “what would you do for one more day?” What would you do for one more day with a dead lover or dead child? It is evocative of our deepest attachments to impermanent things. And yet, it is entirely predicated…
Tomorrow, my daughter leaves for Scotland to attend the University of St. Andrews. It seems like she was only home for a very short while having just returned from an internship in the United States Senate last semester. She is a junior at Smith College. She spent last summer as…