Right From the Hip

Some Additional Thoughts About State Senator Sharif Street’sProposed Medical Parole Program for Pennsylvania Inmates____________________________________ Issues to Consider with respect to extending medical parole in Pennsylvania: How old is the individual? How much of the sentence has the incarcerated individual served? What proportion of that is his or her sentence? Is the individual lucid, rational, self-aware, able to care for themselves, or do they have significant cognitive, physical or emotional deficits? Have the interests of the victim or the victim’s family […]

Chuang Tzu comes to visit on the terrace of the Coffee House of Grace, my imaginary, spiritual rest-stop near Jerusalem-from-above. We read over his book of brief anecdotal stories, called the Inner Chapters. They are related to disclosing the Tao, an interior, spontaneous type of spiritual or philosophic practice which may be translated as the ‘Way.’ These stories operate by indirect means, rather like parables, but since Tao is in some ways intended to be indescribable, the parables are shifting, […]

Courtesy of translator David Hinton, three more Chinese poets, dating from 365 A.D. to 761, have arrived for tea and poetry readings in my Coffee House of faith.  The years are distant, the geography is distant, but for just such reasons, the dialogue has substance.  Their images and observations, their collective plights and pleasures, present a clean palate, an unmarked canvas, on which to taste, to paint.  Like royal characters in a Shakespearean play, we will conduct our debate in […]