Essays

Almost daily, we are faced by difficult choices we are challenged to confront over a range of foreign and domestic policy concerns.

The New Atheists are once again provoking controversy, this time with their comments on Gaza which has prompted divisions among those better known for presenting a united front against religion.

ISIS in Iraq is murdering Christians and Shia Muslims alike under the guise of a Holy War.

In a broad sense of that term, reading Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe is akin to a religious experience. I would not be at all surprised if Tegmark felt a similar sense of excitement in writing this massively learned yet wonderfully accessible book.

Note to my readers: This essay is a follow-up to

I make it a year and four months since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope. In the light of this I was interested to read that he (Pope Francis as he became) had his first interview with a female journalist just three weeks ago.

Whatever happened to that steely British resolve, that famous Churchillian stiff upper lip?  When did the English become as whiny as we Americans?

The summer of 1961 was one of my favorites: Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were hitting home runs, Whitey Ford was winning games, and "Who Put the Bomp" was a big hit on my transistor radio.

This is an Excerpt from my new book 

Ah for every one step forward two steps backward.

Let's be honest. Sure some smart young people who "come to Christ" are deeply sincere.

Very recently I heard a young Israeli called Yehuda Shaul being interviewed on Radio Ulster.

A reader has asked me to comment on the poem in Robert Hass’s book titled “Human Wishes” that I discuss in  my essay Robert Hass, poet: Meaning and Form and Pleasure.

I didn't know who Gerry Goffin was when I was in junior high school, and high school, in the '60s. I listened to AM radio constantly on my new transistor radio, and I knew all the songs on KEWB's weekly Top 20 - so well that sometimes I even called in and won Name It and Claim It.

I'd been writing novels and literary nonfiction for twenty years before I dared to write a