Monday Thought

My friend, Ram Dass, used to practice turning people into trees.  In his own words, he put it this way: “When you go out into the woods…you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are […]

The ancient world is often invoked to legitimize or lend credibility to nearly any position imaginable. Movements with diametrically-opposed views will leverage the same reference in service of their cause. Thus the revolt of enslaved people led by Spartacus in the late ’70s CE inspired both abolitionists and enslavers in the 19th century U.S. While […]

The day I became a dove was a Sunday like many Sundays in my boyhood. Early that September morning, Mom and Dad packed my sister and me into the Chevy for the drive up from Grand Prairie to my grandparents’ place west of Sherman. We always took Texas State Highway 377,  a mostly two-lane strip […]

Sitting in Islamiat class at the age of 10 or 11, the teacher’s voice rang out: “What are the five pillars of Islam?” Dutifully, we answered as a class in one voice. Shahada, salat, zakat, roza, hajj. Every Muslim child is taught to answer this question, and we’re meant to answer on demand to prove […]

I’ve spent many years forming beautiful letters on paper with a pen dipped in black ink.  Each time the pen goes into the bottle of ink, I lift it up, shake it off to remove excess drops of ink, and prime the pen with a few strokes on a piece of scratch paper. Once I […]

Just when it seemed the apotheosis of Donald Trump couldn’t get any more absurd, video surfaced late last month of “an outrageously golden statue” of the former president being wheeled into the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Six feet tall, wearing U.S. flag-themed shorts and holding a copy of the Constitution in one hand […]

Matthew 6:15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. “Am I an angel, Mama?” I asked my mama, and she said no, I’m not an angel, but I can be something like it. I was 10 years old lying on the bed in my pink room with […]

My first memory of God is one I come back to often. I remember through the filter of an evening, summered and humid, creeping in my family’s tiny American apartment. I don’t remember how many birthdays had disappointed me yet, but my hands were still small, stretching across a cheap Casio stretched across my lap. […]

When I was 12, I think I may have trained to be a Christian warrior. It’s the most religious I’ve ever been, and I still don’t quite understand it.  Up until first grade, my family didn’t go to church at all. One day I sat my parents down and told them we had to, that […]

At the dawn of every history aimed at ensuring security and making peace with death, it shall be written: ‘In the beginning, there was the word’. At the dawn of every new temporal order, however, it shall be written: ‘In the beginning, there was violence’. Giorgio Agamben If one were searching for an aphorism that […]