Marilyn McEntyre
Twain’s sorrows
Twain wearied of lecture tours and struggled with guilt over his absence when two of his daughters died. In his final years, the public seemed to want Twain himself more than his books.
Getting ready to go
she said her mother was waiting
could I take her there she was
waiting and would worry she asked
how my mother was and I said...
Russian heart
The opening lines of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground (1864) can hardly be described as inviting: "I am a sick man. . . . I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man....
Biology: Course review
If you forget what axons do,
or how a virus invades a cell,
remember this—
that light becomes food.
That the seasons rhyme,...
The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public
When I first moved to one of California’s beautiful seaside cities, a friend from a less self-consciously glamorous part of the country asked ...
Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life
In his sonnet “On His Blindness” Milton laments the loss that impedes “that one talent which is death to hide,” now “lodged with me, useless, though...
Much Madness Is Divinest Sense: Wisdom in Memoirs of Soul-Suffering
Ignorance is the opposite of love,” writes the father of a young man with schizophrenia, reflecting on his eff...
Power line: Learning to pray
Prayer serves many functions: it brings our attention to the fact that God is present. It makes the spot of ground on which we stand holy ground. It quiets and focuses the mind, clarifies intention and awakens the imagination, opening up the heart and lungs as we breathe more deeply and relax into this most intimate of encounters. As a communal practice, praying creates consensus and convergence of focus, teaching us how to be the body of Christ, and how to speak with one voice and one hope.
One Hundred Days, by David Biro
Being sick is more complicated than it used to be. Medical technologies that offer new hope also lead to a bewildering thicket of options....