I watched this video again recently. When it first played I had friends who saw it as evidence of the president’s dimness. Perhaps I felt something along those lines, as well. Fortunately for the sake of self-esteem if not accuracy, we tend to gloss over evidence of our own prejudices… Of course there was a lot of prejudice going on. Still is, in all sorts of directions. I recall a painful conversation with someone who cited this moment as proof... Read more

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Chiam Topol was born on this day in 1935. And, of course, to think of Topol is to think of the Fiddler… And Tradition. For good and ill, the human way… So often ill. Prejudice and constriction, the narrow way. The narrowest way. And yet, also, with such narrowness, always a possibility of going deepest deep. My take away at this point in my life is how the story in this play and film speaks many truths… Among them how... Read more

thank you, Mark, for the pointer… Read more

And even more to ask here in the States… Rhode Island next! Thank you, Michelle, for the pointer… Read more

THE BALLAD OF TOM JOAD A Reflection on That One Big Soul A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford 6 September 2009 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Like all true stories, there are more than a couple of versions to how Woody Guthrie got around to writing the Ballad of Tom Joad. In fact Woody is responsible for a couple of those versions, himself. The gist of it appears to be that Woody, who was not famous for wide reading,... Read more

In response to my brief and fragmentary rumination on souls, an old and dear friend wrote me a note which included a spelling correction for detritus… She then went on to write: I recall Robert Thurman debunking the idea of reincarnation as wish fulfillment. He said, “What if ‘no reincarnation’ is actually the wish fulfillment?” He was pointing out the Western idea that we can eventually escape the consequences of our actions, and if all else fails, you just die... Read more

Can’t use it, but also, didn’t really want to just throw it away. So… Back when I was smarter, maybe that was last week, I liked to tell people that the real problem in religion isn’t whether we believe in a God that acts in the world or not, but whether we believe we have a separate soul or not. I, I’m embarrassed to say, am inclined from that preface to go into a rant about the problems with the... Read more

On this day in 301 (that’s right, three digits) what would come to be called the Most Serene Republic of San Marino was founded by a stonemason and later saint, Saint Marinus (whose feast day is to my mind quite appropriately celebrated on this day rather than on the more traditional date of his death). Founded as a republic, this microstate completely surrounded by Italy is the oldest continuous republic in the world… Pretty cool… Read more

Wikipedia tells us that on this day in 1838, “(d)ressed in a sailor’s uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a Free Black seaman, future abolitionist Frederick Douglass boards a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery.” One of the great American heroes… Read more