Monday I am retooling a post that I wrote five years ago to apply to yesterday’s visit to my four grandchildren. As the three oldest, Esmé (7), Etta (5), and Eden (3), swarmed over me on their playroom floor, I recalled Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Children’s Hour.” It too features an elder man being swarmed […]
Monthly Archives: June 2019
The Children’s Hour
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Children's Hour", childhood innocence, grandchildren, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Comments closed
Why We Fear the Outsider
Spiritual Sunday My friend Sue Schmidt recently alerted me to a homily, by associate rector the Rev. David Henson at Trinity Episcopal Church in Asheville, North Carolina, that highlights a curious moment following one of Jesus’s exorcisms. Rev. Henson draws on To Kill a Mockingbird, Home Alone, and unspecified Harry Potter characters to explain the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Miracle, Harper Lee, possession, the Other, To Kill a Mockingbird Comments closed
Fantasy Lit Grappling with Drug Addiction
Friday Canadian author Lauren Davis has sent me her latest book, a fantasy portal quest that grapples with the problem of drug addiction. She knew it would appeal to me because of how it draws on fantasy literature, especially Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen, to explore ways of responding to this gut-wrenching issue. The protagonist […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "white lady", drug addiction, Grimoire of Kensington Market, Hans Christian Andersen, Lauren Davis, Lucille Clifton, Snow Queen, suicide Comments closed
Comic Haikus Launch 2020 Election
Thursday Jason Gilbert, a producer at Comedy Central, has written a series of superb haikus on the Democratic presidential candidates, twenty of whom are splitting last night and tonight for the season’s first debate. As often with political comedy, it’s funniest when someone else’s ox is getting gored. Nevertheless, we need to laugh at our […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Comedy, Democratic presidential candidates, haikus, Jason Gilbert Comments closed
Migrant Kids in a Dickensian Nightmare
Wednesday As the Trump administration’s treatment of children at the border continues to horrify the nation, Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist comes to mind. There you have another child caught up in a nightmare where ideology overwhelms basic humanity. Whereas most of us see the death of a child as overwhelmingly tragic, it serves the agendas […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Charles Dickens, Donald Trump, ICE, migrant children, Oliver Twist Comments closed
Gulliver in Trumpland
Tuesday So now Donald Trump, after ramping up war talk with Iran, is magnanimously claiming to be a moderate by calling off his airstrike. Killing 150 Iranians, he tells us, would be a disproportionate response to the downing of an American drone. This time he’s right. Less excusable is that he got us into the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Donald Trump, Gulliver's Travels, Iran, Iranian nuclear deal, Jonathan Swift Comments closed
Our National Health Requires Immigrants
Monday As we watch the Trump administration trample all over American values with its treatment of asylum seekers at our southern border, it’s worth reminding ourselves how much we rely on immigrants. I’ve been reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, an Ethiopian immigrant of Indian parentage, who at one point has a character expound […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone, health care system, Immigration Comments closed
Is Loving Our Neighbor Asking Too Much?
Spiritual Sunday This past week, I attended a special Bible study session on the Good Samaritan parable where Sewanee’s Rev. Amy Lamborn emphasized just how radical God’s second great commandment is. Jesus tells the story in such a way, she pointed out, that call out his audiences prejudices. At a time when we are turning […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Brothers Karamazov, Donald Trump, Fyodor Dostoevsky, immigrant child separations, Parable of the Good Samaritan, Trumpism Comments closed
