Suffering

“Suffering” is a word used to express so many kinds of experience that its precision of meaning has been lost. The Latin verb ferre means “to bear” or “to carry,” and “suffer” derives from it, with the prefix “sub” meaning “under.”

Noble Heart

Christians And Buddhists On Compassion

We need to learn how to be decent human beings. That is the basis for what we call “religion.” A decent human society brings about spirituality. It brings about blessings and what could be called the gift of God. This is an extremely simple-minded approach. I’m sorry if I disappoint you, but it is as simple as that.

Hannah

Just as it is difficult to picture an angel without wings, it is difficult to picture a human with wings. But more than I once considered, it seems that, under certain circumstances, the two are readily interchangeable, just as some solids will transform directly into gases.

Rosie’s Way

Richard presses the buzzer. A dry, rasping sound echoes off the cracked, peeling walls and bounces up from the marble vestibule floor that needs cleaning.

The Heavenly Smile Studio

Eddie thought. “And does The Man With No Head ever go to the photographer?” “Yes.” “And when the photographer asks him to smile?” “He spreads his arms.”

Sight

The raggediest fisherman at the farthermost lake in the most distant corner of a country at the edge of the world went fishing one day when it was neither sunny nor cloudy, neither fair nor foul.

Selected Poems