by Guy Sayles | Aug 9, 2011 |
Canadian humorist and journalist Richard J. Needham once said: “People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.” By contrast, the Apostle Paul said: “Speak the truth in love. . . . Say only what builds...
by Guy Sayles | Aug 3, 2011 |
Artists of life and love need to practice. We learn by doing, hone our skills by repetition, and improve by training. Regular practice conditions us to become better—more competent and more effective—in the ways of authentic life and genuine love. In her book, Writing...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 29, 2011 |
James Hillman suggested it’s the vocation of grandparents to search “for grander possibilities” in children (The Force of Character, p. 188). What if we cultivated the practice, whatever our age, of imagining how a wise and tender grandparent would see and hear others...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 27, 2011 |
Maybe this all-too-common loss of wonder is why Jesus (and other wise spiritual guides) told us that we need to become like children to experience God and fullness of life: A young rabbi once said to his teacher that, in the evening, he could see the angel who rolls...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 24, 2011 |
I talked this morning about how closely connected are our capacities for imagination and for faith. I also gave thanks for how great art, of whatever medium or genre, helps us to imagine a different world than this one: to see, for instance, how good could triumph...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 22, 2011 |
Toward the end of Helen Keller’s remarkable public career, after a speech at a Midwestern college, a student asked her: “Miss Keller, is there anything that could have been worse than losing your sight?” Helen Keller replied: “Yes, I could have lost my vision.” Not...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 12, 2011 |
It’s easy, far too easy, to lose track of what matters. It’s easy for lawyers and judges to lose track of justice. In modern-day legal systems (there’s more than one), career-building, deal-making, and system-gaming can push a concern for justice to the periphery and...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 8, 2011 |
We’ve all known, and some of us have been, people who are hard to love. Some people send contradictory signals: “Go away” and “Come closer.” “Leave me alone” and “Why don’t you ever call me?” “I need help” and “Do you think I can’t do that myself? I heard one man...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 3, 2011 |
Maybe you’ve heard it said that the United States is often caught in the cross-fire of its uncritical lovers and its unloving critics. I try for a third way: to be a loving critic—to practice what Lutheran-turned-Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus once called...
by Guy Sayles | Jun 30, 2011 |
Mary Oliver’s prose poem “West Wind, 2” intrigues and moves me: You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me....
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