When did I stop feeling sure, feeling safe And start wondering why, wondering why Is this a dream, am I here, where are you What’s in back of the sky? From “Valley of the Dolls,” Nurse Jackie’s theme song “Showtime’s comedies…have the whole God-Is-Dead thing down to a science,” posits a June 7 Newsday review…

This post isn’t just for knitters. It’s for anyone who reads poetry—or prose. I’d love your help in sleuthing for knitting metaphors: in poetry especially, but wherever they happen to turn up. In my previous post, I mused on knitting as a way of meditating with poetry. Today I want to turn the tables and…

Knitting is my current obsession. I began learning just a year ago, after I won three classes at a silent auction for a community organization in my town. When I decided to bid for the knitting classes, I was thinking: yes, in my grandmotherly years, this is the perfect craft to teach my young granddaughters.…

I find creative writing difficult. This is in contrast to my professional writing as a consultant, which I find, after twenty five years, relatively straightforward: if you’ve written one foundation report or federal grant, you’ve pretty much written them all. But real writing, as I think of it—including this blog—is another story. While I normally…

Though I was born prematurely, I’ve begun to think that I was really born late, about ten years too late, because I was born with a love for films in which the most pressing issues are high school graduation and how to talk to girls, and consequently I missed all the best ones. This genre,…

The year is 2048 and the nation of Israel has all but collapsed in an overnight power vacuum brought about by the double-headed disaster that coincides with its centennial: a downward spiral in foreign aid from a much weakened America, combined with the demographic liability of an exploding Palestinian population, leaves the Jewish state ripe…

Sharing cigarettes, two boys recline on a sun-baked rock high above their village. Here, close to heaven, they’re able to forget their troubles and enjoy the view. A gunshot jolts them from their reverie. Down among the technicolor trees, a hunter blasts at a bird with his rifle. He hits his mark, but then wanders…

Recently, I attended an “Eco-Christianity” class at an area congregation. It was not for me. The minister who led it was well-intentioned, trying to bring the sacred alive. A dozen or so of us attended the first meeting—a couple who ran an organic farm, an elderly woman, a therapist. It was cold in the spartan…

Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me; to you, O Lord, I return it. All is yours; dispose of it as you will. Give me your love and your grace, for this is enough for me.…

NOTE: The following (including the comment thread) contains spoilers about scenes in the film Let the Right One In. Blood on her lips, eyes wide with lust, Eli stares at Oskar and commands him to run. Oskar is confused. To seal a child’s contract of friendship—a “blood bond”—he’s carved open his hand with a knife.…