What you have done to the least of these…

Eighteen years ago this fall, I accompanied a group of college students on a retreat over at a beautiful camp in Angola, NY. The setting was on the bluffs high above the Lake Erie shoreline.  We had a delightful time there except for one terrifying incident that is still burnished into my memory two decades

A longer table, not a higher wall…

This infernal wall which got Trump elected–and that Mexico was supposed to pay for–is going to be paid for by each and every American taxpayer and is going to add another $20,000,000,000 to the national debt. I object to having my tax dollars contribute to this wretched mistake. There are far better ways to invest

#notmypresident

It feels like a lifetime ago that my young son spoke disrespectfully of then President Bush.  I corrected him and said that even though we strongly disagreed with some of Mr. Bush’s policies, we treat him with respect because we respect the presidency and we respect our nation.  I was a fan of neither George

I’m so sorry, Mohammad…

In 1839, American columnist John O’Sullivan wrote, “We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march in this great experiment in liberty?” When I was in college, I was privileged to find a friend from the other side of the planet. He had come from the strange

A privilege? or a right?

My working life officially began in 1981 and I dutifully paid my share of federal and state taxes and FICA contributions for the next 30 years as well as having deductions to cover my own health insurance. It was never anything I complained about; it always seemed as if it was part of my obligation for

Can you see the morning after?

Yesterday began with such hope and promise. The sun shone brightly; New Yorkers flocked to the grave of Susan B. Anthony–with their “I voted” stickers–to celebrate a century of progress on women’s rights culminating in the promise of a bright victory and a new era of hope. But as the electoral map began hemorrhaging red

Her name….Mother of Exiles

It is hard to know how we, as a nation, will come through this present situation involving ISIS terrorism, Syria, and the refugee crisis.  I loathe the fact that we are leaving my children and grandchildren such a frightening world.  It makes my own Cold-War-hiding-under-our-school-desks-in-case-the-Communists-bomb-us childhood seem tame by comparison.  However we emerge on the other side

The Angels of Our Better Nature

My spirit is so deeply grieved by this horrific massacre in Oregon and by the predictable partisan bickering about what we should do about it.  America, we can and must do better.  We owe it to our ancestors who fought and sacrificed and compromised and immigrated and bled to build our nation. The status quo