When I was a young man, I spent nine months living in the Philippines. One day, I stood on a hill above a slum in Mindanao in the south of the country and looked out at abject poverty, spread out as far as the eye could see. I recall being overwhelmed with sadness that so many people were…
In 1972, Ann Wilson Schaef, an American psychotherapist, coined the phrase “white male system.” which is a consciousness that she says infects everyone living in western society. It’s a very addictive way of thinking and feeling that imprisons us, but we don’t know it exists because of how clever the system is. Imagine a prison cell with four…
We climb into it, the two of us, and I get the tail, you get the head. I’m completely blind but you are assure me you won’t lead me into danger, up there on the stage, guffawing crowds, a buzz of half drunk heckling sawing through the smokey air. That’s what a year of drama lessons have amounted…
“I am a recovering Higher Power” wrote author Ann Lamott in a recent blog, reflecting on the pain of the death of someone close to her. If she was in charge of the universe, she mused, terrible things would not happen. Yet she knew it would be far worse, some bizarre crossover between Monkey Island and August: Osage…
