Consider these lines from the early 1960s pop classic, “A Hundred Pounds of Clay”:

He took a hundred pounds of clay
And then He said “Hey, listen
I’m gonna fix this-a world today
Because I know what’s missin’
Then He rolled his big sleeves up
And a brand-new world began
He created a woman and-a
Lots of lovin’ for a man
Whoa-oh-oh, yes he did

And now these, five years later, from another hit, “Compared to What”:

Slaughterhouse is killin’ hogs
Twisted children killin’ frogs
Poor dumb rednecks rollin’ logs
Tired old lady kissin’ dogs
Hate the human, love that stinkin’ mutt (I can’t stand it!)
Try to make it real, compared to what? C’mon baby now!

Might it strike you as improbable that one artist played a major role in both of these songs, the first which he sang to a hit that peaked at #11 on the R&B charts, the second which he wrote but was beyond happy and surprised to see another artist take to ...

Hardly any of us want to leave this earth before reaching a ripe old age with plentiful living and loving in our memory storehouse and some inclination toward finally letting these noble but frayed vessels of ours go. Premature death always cuts us to the quick, exposing not only our own vulnerability, but also our sense of sadness and outrage when it takes someone we love and will miss.

The recent BBC Films release, “Supernova,” out a few weeks in theaters and as of yesterday on Amazon Prime, explores this theme in particularly poignant fashion, riding the superb acting coattails of Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth as Tusker and Sam, a longtime couple in their ‘60s coming to grips with Tusker’s early onset dementia.

He simply will not allow Sam’s life to be dominated by caring for someone who will not even recognize him in the near future, the richness of their past buried forever within the occlu...

The images, seared into the brain since the now hallowed day of January 6, retain an appalling power. To encounter them again is to be cast into a stomach-churning grief at the darkness we have endured, all the fears of the past four years fully realized. In the end, we did not escape the bullet millions of us had seen aimed at the heart of our country.

We were not “deranged” after all—merely clear-eyed about who the 45th president has always been, and the dire threat he has represented all along to our democracy.

Today, he remains unrepentant and defiant as ever, even as his second impeachment trial reveals, in stark, still frightening imagery and words, the full savagery of the mob he invited to the nation’s capital to perpetrate his evil deeds.

The one consolation: it all could have been much worse. So terribly worse.

Oh, one more consolation, too: he is no longer the president of the United States.

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The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked all manner of havoc and misery across the world, and in the way of all such human crises, it has also revealed deep reservoirs of our species’ adaptability, resourcefulness, and endurance. Part of that adaptation is purely practical: adjusting our behavior and lifestyle to minimize the risk of infection to ourselves and others, and making sure we will have enough food and shelter to survive the economic shock the pandemic has caused.

But another, arguably just as important part, has to do with meeting the internal challenges the pandemic poses, in the realm of what we commonly refer to as psyche, spirit, soul, and communion—that rich playground of the imagination where we grapple with questions of meaning and value, love and devotion, hope and despair.

Whatever our material accumulations, we are poor indeed without a sense of the larger and deeper context, purpose and de...

The fog and devastation of war, and the blindness (both literal and figurative) of humans forced to grope along through its bombed out buildings, tank-rutted roads, and even deeper moral quandaries.

The weight and stench of occupation, of others in complete control of whatever they want to be in control of in your life—including your opportunity to continue living it.

The hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach when experiencing this humiliation, this sin against your sovereignty, day upon dispiriting day.

The heroisms and cowardices and cruelties, both small and large, of those caught up in war’s maelstrom, forced to come to terms with their own codes of conduct and conscience in a time of previously unimaginable duress.

The vagaries of fate, of being born into a particular time and place, of that time and place hurling you pell mell to other times and places, scattering your life like a landmine...