(First, a note on language. I use the term “beggar” in this post, rather than the more modern and commonly used “panhandler,” with specific intention. “Panhandler” is regarded as more value-neutral than “beggar,” which supposedly carries with it a degree of moralism and judgment. In my view, however, “panhandler” minimizes and thus devalues the actual desperation of these people who live in such drastically reduced circumstances, which calls out for a fully human response not reflected in a word that more suggests a job title than it does the pathos we all know is the actual case. I feel the…
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I hear ya, Bro. Not much about the world you see in front of you has seemed quite right from the beginning. Adults have drilled into you at every turn that you have to be honest, patient and kind, take turns, not be greedy, don’t cheat or steal or think you’re better or more deserving than anyone else. Practice the Golden Rule, don’t prey on those weaker, keep your promises, honor your commitments. But it seems everywhere you look, venality and aggression, vulgarity and dishonesty rule the day. Film stars, politicians, coaches, corporate titans, clergy and teachers knee deep in…
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“Pops!” The salutation is not limited to the emphatic, even rambunctious hellos of reunion after a few months of separation on opposite coasts, but also, when I’m already here, as a request for my attention to some matter of apparent urgency to him. Say, a proposal for my participation in some imaginary game involving fire trucks and daring rescues of pets, or for some contemplative question heavy on his 3- and 2/3-year-old mind. A couple of nights ago, on a drive down the highway, it was the latter, and the question was, “Pops! Why are there trees?” Laughing about this…
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Sometimes you’re shuffling back toward bed or the couch with a second cup of coffee in the stillness of early morning when you turn the corner and there it is: a confluence of light and object as the barely risen sun pierces a window and you behold a kind of brushless painting in progress, a still life built of the earth’s slow-but-inexorable orbit made all the more precious for how fleeting it is, impermanence (and beauty) its very essence, like a meticulously rendered sand castle doomed in mere moments by the incoming tide. Could be a chair and pillow, a…
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Like so many moms everywhere, mine loomed huge in my formative years, so much so that when I think back to my childhood it’s difficult to separate much of it, much of myself, from her presence. Which is not to imply that she was forceful or dominant—far from it. Mom, born on this day exactly one century ago in Budapest, Hungary as Zsuzsanna (Susan) Marie Lučić (pronounced “lou-cheech”), was the gentlest of souls. If I could encapsulate the feeling tone of that “presence” I refer to above, what most suggests itself to me is the currently fashionable phrase that she…