Reflections on nature, culture & the inner life
November 2020 Dear Commonweal Friends: I hope this personal letter finds you well. Writing weeks before you receive this letter is an almost impossible task. The Republic is at risk. Our world is changing in ways we can scarcely imagine. But Commonweal rises to meet...
Dear Commonweal Friends: I hope this letter finds you well. This time has been unlike anything we have ever seen. This brave new world has all of us hard at work bringing our programs online, building our resilience infrastructure, and adapting our work to the fierce...
Dear Friends, When older people greet each other from six feet away, I’ve heard them say: "I'd like a younger person to get the ventilator." But ventilators are no panacea for COVID-19, reports National Public Radio: Most coronavirus patients who end up on ventilators...
Loneliness, Mother Teresa said, is the poverty of the West. Never has that been more true. We are urged to "shelter in place," away from our work, schools, friends, family, lovers, and all the places we love. Not everyone listens. The young are in the streets enjoying...
Dear Friends, The first thing to overcome with the coronavirus is fear. The virus is certainly dangerous. The likelihood is we will need to learn to live with it. A "new normal" will emerge with its own protocols for traveling, meeting, caring for each other, grieving...
Dear New School Friends: Walter Murch is a film editor and sound designer. His work includes Apocalypse Now, the Godfather series, The Conversation, and The English Patient. He has won three Academy Awards from nine nominations. Roger Ebert called him "the most...
Leonardo Da Vinci, The Annnuciation Dear New School Friends: I am reading poetry. A friend sent me this poem by Denise Levertov: AnnunciationDenise Levertov We know the scene: the room, variously furnished, almost always a lectern, a book; alwaysthe tall lily. ...
December 15, 2019 Dear Commonweal Friends: I hope my personal Winter Letter finds you well. You have already received the winter edition of our Commonweal News . Commonweal has never been stronger. Our 20 + programs in health and healing, education and the arts, and...
Former Commonweal Program Director Heather Sarantis is just returning from doing humanitarian relief work for asylum seekers near the Texas-Mexico border through Bay Area Border Relief. Heather shares her story here: I had been accepted to do support at Annunciation...
From Stanley Wu, Commonweal Resilience Project Coordinator When Pacific Gas and Energy (PGE) was determined to be responsible for the devastating Camp Fire that killed at least 86 people and resulted in tens of billions in damage, they filed for bankruptcy and changed...