Famous as the one who smiled back
In our lives, we are building or maintaining bridges all day long, even, as in this lovely poem, when we smile back at sticky children in grocery lines.
Take a Peek Inside Our Wonderful World of Stories
Play it again, Sam.
Think of all the times, you’ve talked with friends about the latest movie or show you’ve seen or dropped lines from movies in conversation. These lines become shorthand in our daily script, conveying meaning or signaling something about ourselves.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya.
After all these years, Mandy Patinkin can still easily recite his most famous lines from The Princess Bride movie. But they’re not the words that mean the most to him.
Can we create community with each other?
With all the bitter divides in the U.S. and around the world, it’s hard to believe that human beings can create community with each other. But we can and we do…
Let’s talk about the food
Many people are traveling home for Christmas or other family gatherings this weekend. For some this is an easy time, something they look forward to. For others it can be challenging, fraught with tension. For those, what can be safe to talk about?
It’s a moment of undoing
“It’s a moment of undoing.” Hearing this short phrase, that so powerfully captures the pain and erasure inherent in stereotyping, took my breath away.
Hearing how it applied to autistic people – “If you’ve met one autistic person, you have met one autistic person.” – was a wake-up call for me. It expanded my sense of how easy it is to stereotype all sorts of people, and how quickly I may fall into this. An important reminder for me.
Can we rebuild a bridge during a storm?
Bridges are not easy things to build. They are certainly not built overnight. And sometimes a bridge that we’ve taken for granted – a connection we always thought would be there – is washed away in a storm.
Think That You Might Be Wrong
In 2010, recovering from a traumatic brain injury and traveling across the country with my wife, I was taken aback at seeing this handwritten sign on a telephone pole in New Orleans.
Happiness Is Not a Place
My mother died last summer. She was 91. This quote is from her book about a young girl happily living on a Kentucky farm with her extended family until poverty forces her and her parents to adjust to a new life in Cincinnati.
The Politics of Delusion
There are very real — and substantial — policy differences separating the Democratic and Republican Parties. At the same time, what scholars variously describe as misperception and even delusion is driving up the intensity of contemporary partisan hostility.
Don’t judge me for how bad my bad ideas are…
Don’t judge me by how bad my bad ideas are… If you’re looking for it, you can find wisdom in unexpected places. The other day, I
The Courage to Age
My mother frequently narrated her aging experience. She remarked about having “good days” and “bad days” and how there were fewer “good days” the older she became.