You may already have seen the PBS video on Shirley & Jenny, two elephants who never forgot each other. It’s not recent — at least 10 years old. But it was new to me. Elephants have totemic significance in my family. They were beloved of my mother, and we all indulged her. As a result,…

A friend sent me a blog post from a blogger I don’t follow. And what Mr. Lake had to say (he’s the blogger) had to say resonated deeply. I’m the kind of person who donated money for free speech during the trials of Nazis in Skokie, Illinois. Knowing what I do now about hate speech,…

Even before I did a graduate paper on the Quaker preacher Elizabeth Ashbridge, I’ve been fascinated by Quakerism. The idea that the Divine is knowable to each individual, w/out the mediation of text or preacher or church, is a deeply attractive belief. One I hold firmly: you don’t need a preacher or a holy (wo)man…

Okay — so it’s politics and soapbox time (you can tune out now, if engaged Buddhism doesn’t fit your needs today — I really get it). Sunday, NO ONE spent time on the disastrous West Virginia chemical spill. 300,000 American citizens fighting over potable bottled water so fiercely that WalMart has to call police, and…

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