Posts Tagged ‘freedom’
On the Path to Freedom
April 18, 2018
First seder, Passover 5778. Esther recalls climbing Mt. Pisgah in the early ’80s. She was in her fifties. Visiting her daughter and son-in-law at the time and first grandchild. What did I know about climbing a mountain? she says. I was from Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn. We were walking behind some other hikers, women older than…
Read MoreRectifying 2017
July 10, 2017
During its four seasons from 2013 to 2016, Rectify was no stranger to critical praise. Nearly a year after the series finale, I think it’s time to mention Ray McKinnon’s series alongside the usual exemplars of television’s “golden age”—shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Wire. As I watched the series in…
Read MoreInventing the Kingdom, Part 2
May 23, 2017
This post, which appears as the Editorial Statement in Image issue 92, is continued from yesterday. “I consider myself a sort of portrait artist,” Carrère says, and his other books bear this out, but in The Kingdom most of the best portraits are of the bit players. Carrère’s rendering of Saint Paul, on the other hand,…
Read MoreThe Madding Crowd
May 15, 2017
Why is it that we so often gain courage or cowardice to do bad from other members of a group, but seldom the courage to do good? Why is it that the herd instinct kicks in mostly when the object is to tear something to shreds, like beasts? Or when we’re put in fear by…
Read MorePraying for a Hurricane on an Ordinary Wednesday Afternoon
April 24, 2017
“It is easier to survive a category five hurricane than it is to get through an ordinary Wednesday afternoon.” That paraphrase of Walker Percy (from his essay, “Diagnosing the Modern Malaise”) was suggested to me by my friend Caroline Langston Jarboe. I was wondering out loud why I would give anything to have back…
Read MoreThe Bearable Weightiness of Being
July 6, 2015
I was restless this spring, edging manic. I think my kids noticed. One Thursday I checked them out of school for an impromptu road trip.
“Isn’t this fun?” I asked. If this were a novel I’d say my eyes were glittering, but this is not fiction: I have no idea how wild-eyed I was.
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