Commentary

Reza Aslan 4-01-2012

How U.S. and Israeli threats are undermining the democracy movement in Iran.

Dianna Ortiz 4-01-2012

The U.S. government continues to claim the authority to detain and kill without trial.

Bill Lane 3-01-2012

Lessons from Vietnam

Michelle Alexander 3-01-2012

The fight against mass incarceration is joined by an emerging faith-based movement.

Elizabeth Palmberg 3-01-2012

Clergy to Village Voice: It's not okay to help the sex traffickers.

The U.N. climate change talks in South Africa were a major disappointment -- but the struggle continues.

A Quaker community in North Carolina reaches out to its Muslim neighbors.

Dorothee Soelle 2-01-2012

Is it possible to live without violence and without weapons?

Sami Awad 2-01-2012

Nonviolent resistance will be key to freedom and independence in Palestine.

Marie Dennis 2-01-2012

With U.S. troops now in Africa to escalate the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army, clergy in the region express concern.

Richard Oswald 1-01-2012

Populism sprouts again among many family farmers.

David P. Gushee 1-01-2012

What does individualism have to do with Christianity? Not much.

Rep. John Lewis 1-01-2012

All of us owe Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth a heavy debt of gratitude for his willingness to give all he had to help build a more just society.

Lisa Sharon Harper 1-01-2012

A conference at Cedarville University shows new political boundary-crossing in the Christian college world.

Phyllis Bennis 12-01-2011

U.S. troops will finally withdraw from Iraq -- but what about the contractors?

Peter Maybarduk 12-01-2011

The U.S. should put publicly funded medicines in reach of the world's poor.

Julie Polter 12-01-2011
Jeremy Thomas / Unsplash

EVERY FEW YEARS I rediscover a song by R.E.M., “You are the Everything.” It juxtaposes despair over the state of things (“Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing / I'm very scared for this world”) with deceptively simple memories: A starry sky. The sensations of a random moment long ago. The feel of our own bodies. The sight of someone beloved (“I look at her and I see the beauty / of the light of music”).

This song gives me cathartic comfort when the news seems too much to bear. It doesn't erase famine, wars, rumors of wars, a friend's bad pathology report, or my concern over the body politic. But my position shifts; I anchor myself to the beauty of creation, to the miracle of being an embodied soul, to the fragile graces of human relationship, and to the One who brought it all into being. Thin guy wires of memory and spirit steady me against sweeping currents of events, so that I can focus on them, yet not drown.

David Hilfiker 11-01-2011

Doomsday threats and Wall Street influence erode U.S. government for the people.

Tom Getman 11-01-2011

Glenn Beck's exploitative event in Israel ignored justice and U.S. public opinion.