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07.03.08
The Pleasurable Choice Is the Ethical Choice
"In this spirit I am drawn to Barabara Kingsolver's hope and resolve that, however grim the manmade crises of our time, we are gradually getting some things 'more right.' And, Kingsolver advises, we must treat hope itself as a renewable resource, something we put on with our shoes every morning."
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06.26.08
Drawing Beauty and Decency From Loss
"Recounting story after story from the work she does now, Braestrup finds the “Good News” — God if you will, love incarnate — in casseroles, in impromptu search parties, in the law enforcement officers who put themselves in the position hour by hour, day by day, to be there and be of service precisely in the midst of danger and disaster they cannot make right again."
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06.19.08
Languages Lending Themselves to Memory
"We experience something of the aural dignity and raw beauty of the Ojibwe tongue in this program. We hear conversation and banter among elders, families, and even an Ojibwe immersion school classroom. The sound of these voices alone brings home the scandal of a long stretch of U.S. history where the eradication of native languages was at the center of federal policies aimed at unifying 'civilization.'"
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06.05.08
Pagans Ancient and Modern
"For a long while, I did not know how to approach this vast and loosely affiliated spectrum of beliefs. Adrian Ivakhiv gave me a way in. He is a young Ukrainian-Canadian scholar, an ecologist, and an ethnographer of religion — which means, he explains, that he does not dismiss any religious impulses without first understanding them."
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06.05.08
Learning to Be Surprised
"We can't of course predict what Heschel would say about the details of our contemporary crises, such as the current war in Iraq. But the way he analyzed the morality of U.S. military engagement in Vietnam might guide us. He studied the situation in Vietnam."
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