The Ordinary Decency Of The Heart

Andrew Harvey On Sacred Activism, The Divine Feminine, And Loving George W. Bush

Anyone working at the intersection of mystical faith and political action will tell you that there are powers that do not want this form of activism to be born. As soon as you become sincere in this path, you are going to meet strong opposition. Sacred activists need to be awake to the existence of evil. This is why Jesus said: “I am sending you out as sheep among the wolves. You must combine the wisdom of the serpent and the innocence of the dove.”

Pilgrimage To Nowhere

If spiritual seekers coming to Thailand were treated like their sex-tourist brethren, a contingent of saffron-robed monks would accost you at the Bangkok airport, getting up in your face with a laminated menu of spiritual offerings and shouting, “Intensive Vipassana meditation! Twenty-one-day monastery stay! All-you-can-eat vegetarian meals! Hurt your knees! No sex! Donations only!”

At Her Feet

The door to my mother’s apartment at the assisted-living facility is unlocked, so I enter. The Steinway, silent and black, takes up most of the living room. In the second bedroom — where she keeps her electric piano, painting supplies, and a daybed — the radio plays classical music. It’s nine in the morning, and the blinds have not yet been raised, but there’s light enough for me to see my mother lying on her side on the daybed in her ruby-colored robe.

Room 3206

Mr. K. was forty-two and almost dead, kept alive by machines, tubes, and liquids that would at best give him two or three days more. His wife had brought him to the emergency room, probably because he was confused or vomiting or had chest pain. It soon became clear that he had taken too much Vicodin or heroin or any one of a number of potentially lethal drugs, perhaps by accident, perhaps not.

I Want To Forgive Everyone, Trousers

The first time I read my dad’s diary, I was home for a weeklong midsummer visit. I had been wandering around my parents’ house, typically directionless, looking for something to do. My mom was at work, and my dad — who wasn’t at work, since he didn’t work — was out back sipping a Milwaukee’s Best and reading a book.

Buttoning Up

Snowed In

The International Forgiveness Institute