I remember sitting in the Beth Shalom synagogue in Cambridge on the night of Kol Nidre. Peter Lipton, a friend and an atheist philosopher, was giving a sermon on the theme of “atonement:” “If we treat another person as essentially bad, we dehum...
For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning. They know that they have years i...
What I have learned from the teachers with whom I have worked is that, just as there is no simple solution to the arms race, there is no simple answer to how to work with children in the classroom. It is a matter of being present as a whole person, w...
You can say, 'Well, if they tore down Fenway Park, we can build a new one.' But you wouldn’t build it right. It’s better to make the accommodations, to save the old ballparks. If Fenway Park needs sky boxes to bring in the poverty-stricken owners...
At the end of the day I have many answers for it. It has to do with my mom, who was an extraordinary woman, and a great feminist. It has to do with the people in my life. It has to do with a lot of different things, but -- I don't know! Because I'm n...
My great-great grandfather and I were best of friends, although we never met. Fire and shipwreck orphan us – 140 years apart. We escape to imagination to survive our fate. There, midst flights of whimsy we find one another. Companionship quells our...
Our young don't play outside anymore; they've lost their innocence too early in their lives. We walk around the house ignoring one another, we see each other as separate, we abuse the earth; we kill each other in the name of God, we worship the Dolla...
Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would ha...
Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a...
Professor Albus Dumbledore: [after James and Lilly's deaths] The boy survives. Professor Severus Snape: He doesn't need protection, the Dark Lord is gone! Professor Albus Dumbledore: The Dark Lord will return! And when he does, the boy will be in ter...
[When the two Gypsy girls are brought out to fight, Vavra addresses the tribe in the Romani Gypsy language] Kerim Bey: [translating] The women will fight until one of them is dead or surrenders. The winner will marry the man they both love, the loser...
Little Sue: He said how you was really William Munny out of Missouri... and Bill said "Same William Munny that dynamited the Rock Island and Pacific in '69 killin' women and children an' all?" And Ned says you done a lot worse than that, said you was...
All our contemporaries...had some big ideology to live for. Everybody thought he had to either fight in Spain or die for something else, and most of us had to be in prison for one reason or another. And then at the end it turns out that none of these...
We live in a largely addictive society that continues to reinforce the defenses we learned as children; this reinforcement comes in the form of a negative social pressure to soothe ourselves, to try to obtain instant gratification. . . Many people wh...
You swore to stay with me,” he said. “When we made our oath, as parabatai. Our souls are knit. We are one person, James.” “We are two people,” said Jem. “Two people with a covenant between us.” Will knew he sounded like a child, but he ...
Faith is tested throughout our lives (James 1:3; I Peter 1:7). As the object of our faith proves Himself faithful throughout these trials, our faith grows. Even if we do not have God’s personal revelation about why we are suffering or how He is wea...
The image titled “The Homeless, Psalm 85:10,” featured on the cover of ELEMENTAL, can evoke multiple levels of response. They may include the spiritual in the form of a studied meditation upon the multidimensional qualities of the painting itself...
How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how to the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great...
Lunch looks grand, Meg. You’ve really outdone yourself,” James commented, loading his plate. He frowned down at an escaping carrot extending precariously over the plate edge and eased it back with his fingertip, then grunted and promptly stuck th...
But in this case,” he continues, tracing the line of the plasterwork with one finger, “I feel that there is one cliché that sums up my position so admirably that it would be pure egotism to attempt a more interesting periphrasis. Plain speaking...
When Thoreau considered "where I live and what I live for," he tied together location and values. Where we live doesn't just change how we live; it informs who we become. Most recently, technology promises us lives on the screen. What values, Thoreau...
