It’s been close to ten years since I taught high school English, and yet this week I’ve had two occasions to go back to the Reading List and two occasions to mention Robert Burns. Three nights ago, I wrote about Of Mice and Men, thanks to Burns’ Night. Now, just three nights later, I am…
After a busy night at the Duke restaurant, I went over to watch what was left of the State of the Union address with friends at the same house where we had gathered to watch the debates and the election night returns, which meant I was even later than usual getting home. When I got…
Tonight is Burns’ Night. Two hundred and fifty one years ago, on this night, the Scottish poet Robert Burns was born. Though I have a wee bit o’ Scottish blood in me, I’ve never been an avid celebrator of the anniversary, which Garrison Keillor describes as an evening when, “They read Burns’ poems, sing his…
In the middle of the afternoon, as I was cooking for a friend and Ginger was sermonizing, as she calls it, she started reading MLK quotes to me, ending with this one, which she introduced by saying, “Here’s one I didn’t know.” If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep…
Part of my daily ritual is reading The Writer’s Almanac, both for the poem offered and for the historical notes for the day because they often set me sailing on the sea of my thoughts with their gentle breezes of suggestion. Today was no exception because I learned eighty-two years ago today Thornton Wilder’s Our…
she said, in that way one speaksto get a reaction, or the way I titledthis poem so you’d keep reading.I’m not proud, she said, because Ihad nothing to do with it, deftly putting patriotism in a new light, a search light, underthe bare bulb of interrogation. What, then, can I be? Thankful:that I was born…
Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole…
This was yesterday’s poem at The Writer’s Almanac: The More Loving Oneby W. H. Auden Looking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burnWith…
As we prepare to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, many of us will also take time to make it a part of our worship services as well. I thought I might offer a soundtrack for the weekend, starting with “When the Ship Comes In” by Bob Dylan, which he sang at the…
about the images of buildings lyingflat on top of people, of survivorssleeping in the streets becauseroofs no longer symbolize safety; about those who sit snugly instudios and speak for God withungodly arrogance and ignorance,and those who are helping quietly; about the helplessness that hauntsmy heart on nights like this, whenthe best I can do is…