All last week I felt a strong urge to go to the Philadelphia Flower Show—an extravagance I might have hesitated to write about after Jeanne's post on middle class Quakers making others uncomfortable by talking about things they can’t afford, except that my being there and writing about it ended up feeling so right. At first [...]
Wangari Maathai is another influential Kenyan. The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maathai angered many of the same people as Richard Leakey and received death threats from the regime of Daniel arap Moy (dictator from 1978 to 2002). Writer Alexandra Fuller describes Maathai as “a human-rights activist and environmentalist who ingeniously used an environmental campaign [...]
Thanks to Justamere Tree Farm Blog for this pictureThis story didn't make it into the book, but I've always loved it. The facts came from the Yale alumni magazine, though the interpretation is my own: We live in a culture that values being tough and scorns those who are seen as naïve. But it is [...]
It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, it’s hard to know where to start. I could write about my spiritual journey with the snow days—one more lesson in accepting the things I cannot change—or the great time I had in New York a few weeks ago to watch my friend Stephanie Smallwood get a prestigious [...]