the spiritual radical

When I wash myself with water I shudder, thinking:
“This is the sweat of millions of laborers.”

Street-walkers are my bastard sisters,
and sinister criminals – souls perhaps transmigrated from me.

Concerning those murdered, I think
that I encouraged the assassin.

Perhaps I insulted
the disgraced people in my town.

Something in me confesses
“I’m guilty a thousand times for your distress.”

I want to throw my head at your doorsteps –
Prisons, hospitals – and beg forgiveness.

–Abraham Joshua Heschel


Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Ineffable Name of God: Man. Continuum, New York: 2005, p. 177.

rabbi nachman's prayer

master of the universe, grant me the ability to be alone: may it be my custom to go outdoors each day, among the trees and grasses, among all growing things, there to be alone and enter into prayer. there may i express all that is in my heart, talking with you, to whom i belong. and may all grasses, trees and plants awake at my coming. send the power of their life into my prayer, making whole my heart and my speech through the life and the spirit of growing things.

on revolution

'we apologize for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution.'
~subcommandante marcos

Expect Nothing

by Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared, unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise

JFK's Strategy for Peace Speech (1963)

...Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it....