Violent Lessons

Children are not exposed to enough violence. Yes, I know the grim statistics, how a child who enters middle school has already witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other violent acts on TV. As he and his friends enter adolescence, they take up first-person shooter video games. In college, he becomes . . . . Continue Reading »

A Christmas Eve Carol

Mostly, I grew up a Jew among other Jews. So how had Jesus entered my imagination? How had he come to occupy its core? It took an effort of memory, but I reached back to the first time I had truly noticed him. It had happened on a Christmas Eve. Continue Reading »

Learning to Play

My piano tuner is well over eighty years old. Each time I call him, I fear I’ll learn that he has died. So far he is still with us, though at each visit a little more white-haired and frailer than before. I worry that he will hurt himself when he lies under the instrument or takes out the . . . . Continue Reading »