I have an article about forgiveness up on the “Psychology Today” website . . . . many thanks to my friend, wonderful writer Ethan Gilsdorf, for making this happen. You can read the piece by clicking here. thanks!
novelist, essayist, teacher
Listening for the words
May 24, 2011 By 4 Comments
St. Mary's by the Sea, Retreat House in Cape May Point. (Michael S. Wirtz/ photo)
I recently spent the weekend in silence and centering prayer at a retreat center run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Cape May. It’s a glorious place overlooking the dunes and sea. I was there with some other folks who, like me, are trying to stay sober one day at a time.
The Beloved Face in the Crowd
March 15, 2011 By 4 Comments
The news is tough. Civil unrest. Cruel dictators slaughtering their people. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Nuclear disasters. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, and to want to tune out completely.
That’s what happens when we’re deluged by unfathomable numbers. When we hear entire villages have vanished in the recent tsunami in Japan, how does the mind take it in?
Who are ‘we’?
March 8, 2011 By 3 Comments
Not one of 'us'?
My new book, OUR DAILY BREAD, which will be out in September explores the idea of ‘us’ vs ‘them’. Who do we consider members of our community, of our family, of our tribe?
As many of you know, I spend a lot of time in church basement rooms with other people who want to stay clean and sober one day at a time. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how alike we all are, even though we may seem very different at first glance. In these rooms are people of every race, of every economic level, nationality, every occupation and age group. The guy just out of prison sits next to the cop, the hooker sits next to the nun . . . and so on. Here, we are all members of the same group — the only thing you need for admission is a desire to stop drinking or drugging.
The Forgiveness Cure
February 8, 2011 By 5 Comments
I’m in the midst of editing my new novel, OUR DAILY BREAD, which will be released in the US in September. It’s the story of what happens in a small town when, for generations, certain folks have been ostracized, pushed away and left to fend for themselves. Considered Those People—beyond the pale, beyond redemption—they become resentful, insular, self-hating, inbred, almost feral. Think a rural LORD OF THE FLIES with grown-ups.
Death Be Not Proud
January 28, 2011 By 2 Comments
“Death is a test of one’s maturity. Everyone has got to get through it on their own. I want very much to die. I want to become part of that vast extraordinary light. But dying is hard work. Death is in control of the process, I cannot influence its course. All I can do is wait. I was given my life, I had to live it, and now I am giving it back” – Elegard Clavey
The Defiant Ones
October 21, 2010 By 3 Comments
I spend a lot of time with people like me, who want to stay sober one day at a time, and nearly every day I’m reminded of just how defective our perceptions and judgments are.
For example, a while ago a young man trying to stay sober called me from another city and told me he was calling to “tell on himself,” meaning he needed to tell someone he was thinking of doing something he knew wasn’t in his best interests.
“What’s up?” I said.
oh, the allure...
Don’t worry about the other horses.
September 3, 2010 By 7 Comments
I recently had an email exchange with an artist whose work I admire greatly. She’s an accomplished photographer whose work, in recent times, she feels is getting lost in the swamp. It seems everybody with an eyeball is snapping away with their digital cameras and calling themselves professional photographers these days, just like everybody with an ability to form even the simplest of sentences is self-publishing and calling themselves writers. (Heck, even some folks who can’t form a simple sentence do that.) She says there’s so much good photographic work being produced now, she wonders why she should bother trying to contribute something new?
Riding the tree roots
August 13, 2010 By 9 Comments
I wonder if you, like me, have ever found yourself sitting in the dark, tear-stained and brittle with anguish, listening to Tom Waits, perhaps, emptying a bottle of scotch, or a pot of coffee, maybe smoking cigarette after cigarette, staring out a fractured glass into the night, your soul blank, your stomach churning, your thoughts a tsunami of confusion, your skin burning with grief, your fingers tingling with longing for something you know you’ll never hold again.
At the bottom of the well
The river of stories
July 22, 2010 By 2 Comments
The other day I visited the Rescue Mission of Trenton, with the group, People & Stories, to talk about literature and life. Diane, a volunteer organizer drove me there. When we arrived we entered an unmarked steel door in the side of a cement block building and when the woman behind the glass saw us, she buzzed us through a second door. The hall before us was interchangeable with a thousand other such institutions: florescent lighting, steel water fountain, cinder-block walls painted pale pink and yellow, tan lino on the floor. Diane led me through a maze of hallways smelling faintly of bleach, past poorly-lit rooms in which men and a few women lounged on uncomfortable-looking chairs or sat around folding tables; through a ramshackle courtyard in which mission trucks were parked, past loading docks, and storage rooms full of broken furniture, pots and pans and stacks of plates. Finally we entered a somewhat cavernous room with wood paneling and linoleum tile, nine blue tables set up in a T-shape, and a large wooden cross hanging on the wall.
