On the 28th of June, 1914, the city of Sarajevo in Eastern Europe, which is today the capital of the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was, at the time, the capital of a province of the same name within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In late June of that year it was the site of a royal … Continue reading The War to End All Wars
The story goes that once there was a king who ruled in a certain country, and like most kings – and indeed, like most of the highest leaders in most places and times – he was exceedingly wealthy, although many of his subjects had almost nothing to live on at all. Each night, his table … Continue reading The Sense of Our Small Effort
Some years ago, when I was a student in college during the previous millennium, I was in a class discussing a particular work of English literature. And midway through the discussion, which I can no longer remember any other part of, one of my fellow students startled our professor and the rest of us into … Continue reading Everything That Happened, Happened
In 1805, the French poet Emile Deschamps was only a young boy when his neighbor – an older gentleman named M. de Fortgibu – returned from a trip to England. He’d brought back with him an English treat called plum pudding – a dessert that’s quite popular in England, but about as unusual to find … Continue reading Against All Odds
[Begin by singing: “Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen…”] That song comes to us this morning from the African American Spiritual canon, which means that it has its origins in the Black Church and the struggle to survive and make meaning amidst the horrors of slavery. So it is a collective creation – it has no … Continue reading The Amen Break
