Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, 6:30 am 3 May 2008
Posted by EDITOR in GUESTS, Poetry, Spirituality.5 comments
Our guest contributor this week is Emma O’Donnell, a Boston-based theology student.
Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, 6:30 am
If what we seek
resides in silence
why then this cacophony
of birds, this riotous
explosion of song bounding
off the river at dawn?
The Heart of the Believer 19 April 2008
Posted by EDITOR in ABD, Family, GUESTS, Gender, Psychology, Spirituality.9 comments
Our guest contributor this week is ABD, a student of political theory and a one-time regular at othermatters.org.
The heart of the believer is between two fingers of the Merciful.
- Prophet Muhammad, on him be peace (Muslim, Ahmad)
The women at the table in front of me—sisters, mother, date—lean in when he speaks. He wears glasses and a nervous, half-embarrassed smile. He may not stand out at a different table, but he holds court here. There is an attentiveness to him that has nothing to do with him. He is a window, a tuning fork, a string of lights out into the bay.
(more…)
retread| Jewish-Arab Relations in a Vietnamese Restaurant on Argyle Street 4 April 2008
Posted by EDITOR in Culture, GUESTS, Politics.add a comment
Retreads are quality posts from yesterweeks that are given a second run on Fridays. This is a 25 June 2006 piece from guest contributor David K, a Chicago-based freelance journalist.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005. I had a touching experience today. I was having lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant on Argyle Street here in Chicago. At the end of the meal, I went up to the counter to ask for change with which to leave a tip. The man who gave it to me was Asian, and I asked him if he was from Vietnam. He said he was. I then asked if he spoke French. He learned it a long time ago, he said, in high school.
retread| Fi Yadd Allah [In God's Hand] 14 March 2008
Posted by EDITOR in Family, GUESTS, Spirituality.add a comment
Retreads are quality posts from yesterweeks that are given a second run on Fridays (formerly Saturdays). This is a piece was originally shared on 13 May 2007 by guest contributor Laury Silvers.
My mother is getting old. Old enough now she realizes that her children do not have good relationships with one another or with her. Old enough to realize she doesn’t want to die with the family not a family at all. Whenever she was in a tight spot, my mom used to play that Stones song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” She’d play it over and over. I remember her sometimes lying on the floor listening to that song with the speakers on either side of her head. It’s a little late in the game to want us to be a family now, Mom. I don’t see it.
Ramadan Unplugged 23 September 2007
Posted by EDITOR in BARAKA, GUESTS, Psychology, Spirituality.add a comment
Our guest contributor this week is Baraka, a San Francisco-based writer and human rights activist. She has just returned to blogging after a hiatus, now at Rickshaw Diaries.
Taking the N-Judah train through town Monday morning, every coffee shop we rumbled past had lines out the door; people waiting groggily for a cup of our second biggest import (after oil) to jump-start their day.
