Ephraim Radner

I have long known who Mischa Elman was: one of the great violinists of the last century (1891–1967). But only last month did I finally manage to listen to him. He is dead, of course. But there are available recordings of his playing that date back to the 1920s. These are a bit scratchy, . . . . Continue Reading »

The American modernist poet E. E. Cummings ended up as a somewhat lonely, politically conservative Unitarian. It happens. He wrote some glittering verses glorying in the natural world and its colored wonders, and would jot down religious thoughts here and there. “May i be i is the only prayer,” . . . . Continue Reading »

I do not understand war. Even in the present time, for all my deeply felt moral and religious commitments touching on today’s conflicts, the reality of war itself seems to engulf my certainties. I am often at a loss for words and prayers. In 2018, I attended a church service in a small . . . . Continue Reading »

Sometimes I will exclaim, when dealing with irritating and difficult people on the phone, “What’s wrong with these people?” Actually I do this a lot, not just on the other end of the phone, but in the face of this or that author, car driver, or person standing ahead of me in the cashier’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Disappearance is usually felt as something bad. When things disappear, we sense the pull of death, the call of the dust, the loss of the palpable good. I have recently been moving house after many years in one place, with all its accumulations. Things, often intimate things, are left behind, given . . . . Continue Reading »

A colleague of mine is extraordinarily productive: reams of articles, books, editing duties, institute-leading, fundraising. It’s the kind of performance his peers envy, all the more because lurking behind his energies and accomplishments are the realities of a troubled family: spousal . . . . Continue Reading »

Years ago, I spent a month with my family in Burundi. I had once worked there when still single. During this visit, my daughter took French lessons from a local teacher in the small provincial center where we were staying. At one point, M. Jérôme, the teacher, asked her why Europeans give flowers . . . . Continue Reading »

Winter is a bad time. Whether for a season or for a life, it dampens the self. Or so a recent writer claimed. “Mankind endured a long winter of the Dark Ages” for a thousand years, “repressing” the human spirit in a barren season that lasted centuries. The human individual, as fate would . . . . Continue Reading »

How long, O Lord? The question is posed repeatedly by the Psalmist. It continues to be posed across the ages, uttered even by our lips in the shadows of a dark season. How long must I suffer this illness? Drag through this labor? Bear with evil men? Did not our Lord himself wonder this . . . . Continue Reading »

Cities have figured prominently in the Christian imagination: City of God, City of Jerusalem, the Heavenly City. The single English word “city” has varied referents that easily blur our vision. But the image has lodged itself firmly into our religious politics. The “secular city” (a phrase . . . . Continue Reading »