Issue 152 | The Sun Magazine

July 1988

Readers Write

Progress

Being a tree, meeting the neighbors, growing larger than pains

By Our Readers
Quotations

Sunbeams

Worshipping the teapot instead of drinking the tea.

Wei Wu Wei

Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

The Heart Of Understanding

If you look into this sheet of paper, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in it. Without a cloud, there can be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Inter-being” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “to inter-be.”

By Thich Nhat Hanh
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

What To Do About The Past

The phone wakes me during the night. I rush to answer it because I have just been dreaming of Dad and imagine the call might be about him. It’s a wrong number, but I’m not annoyed. Catching a dream of Dad is like catching a rare, prize fish. The unconscious has goofed and let me see something it usually hides.

By Julia McCahill
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

On Writing

Mondays are not good writing days. One has had all that freedom over the weekend, all that authenticity, all those dreamy dreams, and then your angry mute Slavic uncle Monday arrives, and it is time to sit down at your desk.

By Anne Lamott
Fiction

The Disappearance Of Baby Dinosaurs

The light is off in the hallway. It’s been off for a month and the first floor tenant, Mrs. Gaynor, has complained to the landlord. Over and over.

By Rosanna Staffa
Fiction

Mama’s Story

I’ve warned Mama not to tell her story today. Mama has a visitor, a Mrs. Thompson from her Sunday School class. First Baptist believes in staying in touch.

By Candace Perry