Issue 364 | The Sun Magazine

April 2006

Readers Write

Decisions

To pull the plug, to go from judgment to acceptance, to leave a marriage

By Our Readers
Sy Safransky's Notebook

April 2006

This morning, I came across these words by Ramana Maharshi: “God’s grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck deep in water feels thirsty or that a fish in water feels thirsty or that water feels thirsty.”

By Sy Safransky
Quotations

Sunbeams

Nowadays, the common wisdom is to celebrate diversity — as long as you don’t point out that people are different.

Colin Quinn

The Sun Interview

In God’s Name

Muslim Scholar Ebrahim Moosa On Freedom, Fundamentalism, And The Spirit Of Islam

In the past Muslims understood that the message of Islam is contained in very specific teachings, and that other teachings in the Koran are very Arabian in character. Unfortunately, some present-day Muslims — and they are properly called “fundamentalists” — do not look at the historical context of the Koran’s teachings, and so they want to transplant those Arabian teachings exactly as they are into twenty-first-century society.

By Krista Bremer
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Along For The Ride

Up until two weeks before her death, my mother drove her little Toyota through the streets of Boston every day. She couldn’t do it alone; my father had to help her. He guided her in and out of the car and turned the key in the ignition.

By Joan Marcus
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, honest self-expression carries a heavy price. Over the last six years, as many as a hundred print publications, including forty-one daily newspapers, have been closed by Iran’s hard-line judiciary. In April 2003 the Islamic Republic became the first government to take direct action against bloggers. Many more bloggers and online journalists have been arrested or intimidated since.

By Nasrin Alavi
Fiction

Hello, Gorgeous!

His biggest thrill was meeting someone new. Three or four times a day, at least, he would see a girl and just be unable to stop looking at her. Hello, gorgeous! he would think.

By Bruce Holland Rogers
Fiction

Communion

Ever since the divorce, my mother had been living life at a frantic pace. There were mornings when she hardly had time to butter her bread, let alone toast it.

By Jason Schossler