Donald Hall, a celebrated poet and writer rooted in the New Hampshire soil where his ancestors have lived for generations, is a man of profound feeling and spirituality. Having had to face life-threatening illness himself as well as the agonizing death of his wife, Jane Kenyon, also a poet, he knows what it means to have his faith tempered in the fire of suffering. Continue reading
Category Archives: Articles
Can the Generations Talk to One Another?
Does a gap yawn wide and deep between Americans currently middle-aged and their parents? Has the generation of younger adults been brought up so differently that communication between them and those now old is, if not next to impossible, at least extremely difficult?
Mary Pipher, Ph.D. definitely thinks so. Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, the title of her new book, suggests as much. Pipher, a clinical psychologist based in Lincoln, Nebraska, places great emphasis on the cultural changes that have swept over this country in the past century, considering them to have made members of older and younger generations practically foreigners to one another.
Single Payer
On a bright breezy morning, cheek-by-jowl with noisy Beacon Hill street traffic and busy people on the way to work, it was exhilarating to stand outside the State House interviewing advocates from around the Commonwealth who had come to lobby for health care legislation. Many older men and women animatedly milled about holding signs in favor of single payer health care.
Barbara Ackermann who reads this column in Cambridge, had urged me to come to the rally. Now age 74 and long retired from electoral office, she once served as Cambridge’s first female mayor. These days she uses her sharp political skills to lobby for fundamental change in the health care system.
Thou Shalt Not Kill
In my growing-up years, whenever I reflected on the Ten Commandments I used to think one of them unnecessary. Why did the Lord include among the injunctions given to Moses on Mount Sinai the command “Thou Shalt Not Kill?” Was it not obvious that a person should never murder another human being, no matter what the provocation? How could any sane person ever consider committing such a horrendous act?
Arguing the World
Growing up in New York City, the four argued their way through their early manhood. Their chief rite of passage was passionate discussion of issues, especially the political issues that loomed over the 1930s and 1940s. Classmates at City College, they were sons of Jewish immigrants who were struggling to survive in a turbulent urban environment.
Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer are the subjects of a fascinating documentary recently shown on public television and now available on videotape. This film, “Arguing the World,” traces the unforeseen changes that swept over the lives of the four men as the decades moved on. All but Irving Howe are still alive and working in professional fields where they have achieved notable reputations.
The Philosopher and the Monk
They sat on opposite sides of the moderator, two men marked by family resemblance but strikingly different in overall appearance: the father’s head almost bald because of age; the son’s shaved cleanly like a pro basketball player; the father dressed in a business suit with shirt and tie; the son wearing a long flowing robe saffron and dark red.
One of these two men, Jean-François Revel (an assumed name), ranks as one of France’s leading philosophers. Now 75 years old, he enjoys a reputation as a hardheaded secular thinker, a rationalist who trusts reason alone to understand reality.
Who Wants to Hit a Hundred?
Good news – – I’m going to live to 95.8 years of age! At least that’s what the Life Expectancy Calculator tells me. Following the suggestion of Harvard researchers, Thomas Perls, M.D. and Margery Silver, Ed.D., I took the test devised by them and can now plan ahead with confidence.