Toi Theo Dao Phat Giao
Not a conversion experience, really. More like waking up one morning with the realization that I had become a Buddhist. William James said of religion that it is the “fruits not the roots” that are significant markers of belief and if that’s true, then I can say I practice Buddhism at least as much as [...]
Hearing Mass (VN Diary 14)
My hotel is right across from Hanoi’s St. Joseph’s Cathedral, built by the French in, I think, 1889. It is a gray concrete hulk without much charm, it’s two towers modeled on Notre Dame. I hear the bells strike the quarter hours and a little faint singing from morning mass; but Sunday evening mass, it [...]
Vietnam Diary 3 (Nhat Ky 3)
Well, all the preparation is complete. I’ve picked up my travel funds from the university, gotten travelers checks, made sure my prescriptions are filled, taken my old car to the dealer who has my new one on order, packed most of my things, sent all the necessary emails, and now I feel as if I [...]
Counterintuitive
This item in the NY Times caught my attention yesterday because I am writing a story in which a religious woman is dying. According to the study quoted, very devout people request more heroic measures to extend life than those who are not religious. One would have thought otherwise, given that the afterlife should be [...]
Short Fiction Notes: Flannery O’Connor
I’ve just reread O’Connor’s “And the Lame Shall Enter First” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” & it hasn’t been so long since I read “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It’s not my purpose in these notes to produce an analysis, but to catch a sense of my own reactions to various writers’ [...]
