On this anniversary of 9/11 the papers are full of stories about fisticuffs over the memorial at ground zero. It’s NYC and Bloomberg versus NY and Cuomo, fighting over who gets to control the memorial, who has to pay for it (it costs $60 million a year to maintain). This is about all the little […]
Freedom
Dropping Keys
We are living in a time when the standard versions of religion are losing their appeal. The spirituality offered by these traditions seems small and niggling. Whatever is intended, the message people are getting is mostly about who’s got the truth and who doesn’t, who belongs inside the circle and who doesn’t, who’s having the […]
The Spirituality of Mad Men
I love Donald Draper, even if he makes me cringe. He’s the star ad exec in the TV series Mad Men, and season five premiers this Sunday night. Donald Draper is a mystery. He is the picture of 1950s perfection—“has it all”—and yet his life is wildly out of control. It always seems […]
Staying Home–For Fear
If like me you loved to read Shel Silverstein to your kids (or you’re lucky enough to be doing it now), you remember “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and “The Giving Tree.” Here’s another Silverstein poem I found, one I didn’t know. It’s a riff on the Pied Piper myth. It’s a poem about staying home—for […]
Learning from Whitney Houston
When a “star” like Whitney Houston dies in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub, everyone is shocked. We shouldn’t be, of course. Whitney Houston, like so many stars and starlets before her, slid into drug abuse, did stints in rehab, and lived in an abusive marriage. She was hugely successful—selling over 55 million albums—but like every […]
You’re Not Gonna Wanna Hear This
“No! I told him I wasn’t coming!” The woman answering her cell phone was talking way loud. I was five rows back on the train and the noise disrupted my conversation with Pam. “I don’t care—I’m not going!” Now the whole car was awkwardly silent, forcibly listening. A young man across the aisle from the […]
Prison Envy
I grew up in farm country South Dakota, where I heard a lot of Johnny Cash. I loved his voice. It sounded like a rusted muffler, but it moved me. So I’ve listened with interest and pleasure to Johnny’s daughter, singer, song-writer Rosanne Cash who’s earned her own place in American music. When someone offered […]
True Freedom
I don’t know if it’s true, but someone once told me that domesticated birds can be trained to sit by an open window—and not fly away. You put their perch next to an open window, but you tie one foot to the perch, so that when the bird attempts to fly out the window, it […]