Writing is Remembering
What can you do when you find yourself suddenly, and unexpectedly, in the power of someone you have offended, and they have revenge in mind? Assume the situation is one in which they can ruin your reputation, or deprive you of your livelihood, or take your life. Are there ways to handle the situation, to … Continue reading Softening the Hearts
Backyard Roses. Photo by Beth Ben-Avraham, Beersheba, Israel, 2019. On March 24, 1976, two policemen knocked on the door of my apartment in student housing at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi. The policemen told me that they had received a message; I was to call my father's music store in Jackson. Both my former … Continue reading The Bitter and the Sweet
(Cucurbita pepo var. giromontina). Found in Berzi near Bauska city, Latvia. Sanja565658 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0). Over forty years ago, I became a vegetarian. I was a philosophy graduate student at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Not, in all of the time since, did I become familiar with the term "vegetable marrow." Recently, however, I … Continue reading “I Cultivate the Marrows”
Cando ke Rajkumar Kulfi, aka "The Wonder-Dog." I don't remember when I first came across the saying, "Be the person your dog already thinks you are." My wife says it might have been on a bumper sticker on a car in our old neighborhood in the States. Regardless of when I first became aware of … Continue reading Splendour and Travail
Children Sleeping. Painting by Vasily Perov, 1870. What is the first thing you do after waking up in the morning? For present purposes, exclude turning off the alarm clock. In my early twenties, the first thing I frequently did was smoke a cigarette. Eventually, a friend convinced me to stop smoking. It was one of … Continue reading Allies, Not Enemies
Robert Frost's home in Shaftsbury, VT.Photo by Beth Ben-Avraham, ©2020 All Rights Reserved. Have you ever admired a person and then learned about something they said or did, or didn't say or didn't do, that caused you to examine your feelings about them? It's happened to me on more than one occasion. Often, quite often, … Continue reading Weak Creatures of Clay
Walkeshwar Temple, Malabar Hill, Mumbai, 1860. Photographer unknown. Public domain. A few days ago, I was putting away my second set of tefillin, when I dropped the one worn on my arm. It was in its protective case and landed upright undamaged on the floor. A friend picked it up and handed it to me. … Continue reading The Element of the Sacred
