I have always found the deep split between the spiritual and sexual in nearly all religions, including the Buddhism I practice, very troubling. While it’s possible to argue that Buddhism has less of this than Judeo-Christian traditions, I’m still convinced that there’s a gap in the teachings that has lead to an enormous amount of confusion, condemnation, and suffering. And I don’t think it’s necessary to be a monastic in order to experience these gaps – no one, I think, is really immune.
NaNoWriMo: Pass the Prom Dress, ‘Cause Mama’s Got a Novel to Write
During National Novel Writing Month, our writer decides that writers really are so weird they need their own reality show. Take John Cheever, for example, who could only write in the nude. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in literary land.
Girl Meets Canada: The End
Our traveler reaches the end of her amazing, quirky journey across the huge country that is Canada and looks back on what she has and hasn’t learned over the past four months. The truth is, she’s gone from West Coast to East Coast and she’s just plain run out of road. We will miss Sarah’s posts from towns we never knew the names of before, but hopefully she’ll be back with many more Sarahisms. Here’s her last post from the road.
The Last Hospice
“I’m a volunteer at Maitri, the only remaining AIDS hospice in San Francisco,” writes Lisa Katayama. “Once a week, I hang out with its 15 residents, run errands for them, and — sometimes — sit at their bedsides as they go through the process of dying. I do it because I like to face my fears, and death is the one thing that I fear the most.”
A Poppy for My Father
Dad was asked why he was fighting Japan and he answered something like, “I didn’t sign up to fight you, I signed up to fight Hitler.” On that note, he was given a wry smile and promptly sent from the hut.
An Unlikely Friendship: The German Girl and the Candy Bomber
At Remembrance Day, a story from postwar Berlin that may surprise you, a reminder that small gestures and acts of kindness — a child’s letter, a quick decision, two sticks of gum — can have unexpected, far-reaching results. At this time of year especially, I sometimes wonder how it is possible to get past […]
The Flowers of Sacrifice
Once I saw the hole a bullet made in the human body. He was a Vietnam veteran and he told me I could touch it, stick my finger in the scar-tissued tunnel it left beneath his rib. Forty one years later I still remember my panic…
November 11 – Remembering Those Who Stayed Behind
As a wounded world began the year of 1946, the cloud of destruction and sorrow that had claimed Europe was lifting. Instead of horrific stories and traumatized soldiers, Doris was seeing hopeful faces and happy jubilation everywhere on the streets of England. The excited war brides in particular started Doris thinking about her desperate decision to end her relationship with the man she truly did love. Was it too late?
You Aren’t Always What You Eat, Right?
An inadvertent misplacement of food turns a normally innocuous snack into a disgusting affair.
Courage to be Vulnerable
A heavy personal loss this season has me meditating on the act of being vulnerable. I’ve discovered that it is a conscious act — a courageous one. Being vulnerable requires that despite its cuts and cracks and wounds and brokenness, the heart must remain fearlessly open. It’s counter-intuitive for most of us.
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