The Kindness of Strangers In the January 2025 issue of The Christian Century, I found a brief article by Samuel Wells (an Anglican priest who serves as head pastor of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London) with the interesting title, “Microdrama in Trafalgar Square.” (See lead photo.) Apparently Wells is just getting ready to walk across the…

Notes From Prison   In the October 21, 2024 issue of The New Yorker, Alexei Navalny is given credit for writing an article titled “Prison Diaries.” Presumably these were excerpts gathered by his wife, Yulia, and others who received his postings smuggled out of maximum-security prisons over the years. After being poisoned by Russia on…

Writing Your Own Obituary The September 29, 2024 Opinion section of The New York Times featured a think piece by Kelly McMasters titled, “Why I Write My Obituary Every Year.” (See lead photo.) Finding that title eye-catching and provocative, I read further. I learned that McMasters had been writing her obituary every year since she…

Chasing Hope On recent weekday afternoons I’ve been reading – during my “unstructured time,” as my youngest son Kevin puts it – a memoir by New York Times Editorialist and Reporter Nicholas Kristof titled Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life (Random House, 2024). Kristof quotes Desmond Tutu on his opening page: “Hope is being able to…

“Reach Out of the Darkness” – As Timely Now as it was Then When David and I take walks or just relax on the front porch, we listen to Pandora on my phone. We almost always listen to the Roy Orbison or Gordon Lightfoot channels. Recently we heard the song “Reach Out of the Darkness”…