I’ve quoted William Barclay (1907 – 1978) the Scottish bible scholar and one of my favorite spiritual writers, in past posts. See 2/1/07 & 2/11/06. Another Barclay observation worth repeating is from his mediation book, Day by Day, where he says: "If a word of praise or thanks has to be spoken, it had better be spoken now -for life is an uncertain business, and you may never get the chance to speak it again…There is an old Latin proverb…
It’s time for Senator Joe Lieberman to take off the mask and come out of the closet. He is not a Democrat nor an Independent. He is, and always has been, a Republican. The evidence overwhelming even though he caucuses with the Senate Democratic majority. President Bush has no stronger or more vocal supporter for his failed Iraq war policies then the good Senator. Of course, during the short time he was running for re-election and losing in the Democratic…
American poet Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" and the words appear on the Statue of Liberty. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door." However, the reality is often something quite different in our nation’s immigration courts. Issues dealing with asylum requests, deportation and immigration are largely processed by some two hundred…
There are volumes of beautiful words written about life, death & relationships, but here are a couple of examples worth reflecting upon. The first is W.H. Auden’s powerful poem about death which communicates so well the anguish of losing someone close to you. Here’s what he wrote: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos with muffled drum; Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let airplanes…
One of the accounts in Tony Horwitrz’s book, The Devil May Care, is about a sailor with connections to Seattle. Joshua Slocum (1844 – 1909) was born in Nova Scotia and left home at age sixteen to work on sailing ships. Through years of experience, he became a captain of cargo ships and ran a schooner between Seattle and San Francisco in 1869. He also was the captain on cargo ships running to Australia and the Philippines. In 1882 he…
Discrimination over race is nothing new for America. David Pietrusza describes the "Jim Crow" situation of the 1900’s in his book 1920 The Year of Six Presidents. As an illustration of the strong bias against blacks in the United States, he points out that in October of 1901 Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for a private dinner. The white South was enraged. The Memphis Scimitar fumed that the President had committed "the most damnable outrage…
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, from Sudbury, Massachusetts, has written a number of books. One of them, Invisible Lines of Connection, is a collection of stories of observations of life events about connections between people and God. Some of his insights include the blackness of night while on a ship when one sees a light house light. He notes "Each lighthouse has its own distinctive pattern of flashes, a coded light-message which enables the approaching mariner to identify his location on the…
Roger Rosenblatt has written some sound advice in his piece "rules for aging," Here’s a summary of some of the rules he advocates: 1. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you think matters really doesn’t. 2. Yes, you did. If you have the slightest doubt whether you are responsible for a wrong – you are. Come to this conclusion early and act to correct it. 3. Nobody is thinking about you. I promise you, nobody is thinking about you. They are too…
In The Devil May Care Tony Horwitz describes fifty Americans, as he puts it, "and their quest for the unknown." One of the accounts involves George Catlin, 1796 – 1872, who entered law school in Connecticut and was admitted the bar the following year. But, within a few years he gave up the law and decided to become a painter. At first he specialized in miniatures, but seeing a delegation of American Native Indians in Philadelphia, he decided to make…
In his book, 1920 The Year of Six Presidents, David Pietrusza recounts the struggle to obtain the right of women to vote. He describes Alice Stokes Paul who dedicated herself to the cause, even picketing the White House in 1913. Marching on the way, some ten thousand suffragettes were set upon by thugs who slapped them, spit on them and knocked them down, tearing banners out of their hands. Over the next several years, Paul and thousands of other women…
