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Although I have longed to find the time to read Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I often wish that there were some great book about the rise of the Roman city state and Rome before Julius Cesar. Why? Because the nobility of Rome in its rise surpasses any real moral scruplesContinue reading “Cicero: the Last True Roman”

When I am researching, I try to read 100 pages a day. How I do it is I read 50 pages in the morning/afternoon and 50 pages in the evening. For the longest time I did this with ease, but lately this is often difficult. Either I am busy–but this is only occasionally a problem–orContinue reading “To Read or Not to Read”

Years ago an elderly Jew at my synagogue said of the weekly reading, “Each one of us has a portion we wish we could leave out. My portion is the portion on leprosy. I wish we did not have to read that the leper is cast out of the community.” Of course, we know theContinue reading “To Embrace the Leper”

In the Symphony of Creation, there is a thought about wind blessing God, which applies to the Problem of Evil, and the complicated nature of the world God works his will through, The wind proclaims, “I will say to the north, ‘Give!’ and to the south wind, ‘Do not withhold! Bring My sons from afar,Continue reading “Thoughts on the Problem of Evil”

For me a book written is the Mountain from a distance which has been climbed. And for me part of the climb involves research. In contrast to my methods of writing, I have always envied authors like Dickens, who simply opened the windows to his house, so that the scents and sounds of London wouldContinue reading “The Mountain that Must be Climbed”

Periodically I have an extreme case of the lazies. Today, I am ashamed to admit something: though I read a miniscule part of The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (pages 321-332), I have decided I am reading no more today…  I have an extreme case of the lazies, I guess… More, I shall not readContinue reading “How We Keep Our Rests”

Prayer, I have discovered, is like an art form. Particularly if one of your limitations happens to be one of mine: outside of shul I happen to be unable to use a prayer book to say them. Yet I have devoted some time to prayer this week. I am not really good at it, butContinue reading “Prayers like Pearls”

I received a copy of Heidi when I was in grade school; it turned out, so I found out later, that it was a book my Grandma Williams read to Mom before she entered kindergarten. It was a book of a joyful little girl (Heidi herself); a taciturn but ultimately loving Grandfather; a goat herdingContinue reading “Johanna Spyri’s Heidi”

I have several versions of a book on my shelf: The Symphony of Creation. I first heard of it reading Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Prophets. It is a book of the Universe’s prayers to its Creator. I am in the second section of the book, and I came across this portion on the portion ofContinue reading “To Pray Like a Tzaddik”

Sometimes the ideas don’t flow when I want to write a Blog.  Every writer has writer’s block sometimes, I suppose… I had to learn to journal ideas to avoid being swamped with unworkable and forgotten ideas.  Yet there is a heart of a story that when it comes is like an inner music forming itsContinue reading “The Art of Storytelling”