In my last few columns, I have been reminiscing about my first few days at university. One of those memories has to do with my one and only in-person encounter with the incomparable revolutionary and inspiring poet, Maya Angelou .
For the birth of my three children, I made a simple request to the doctors and the nurses. It had nothing to do with painkilling medicine (or lack thereof). It was a request that was met with amusement, a chuckle, and some puzzlement.
In the movie Avatar , when the character Neytiri finally meets human Jake Sully, they exchange a saying that has been a part of their love affair: “I see you.”
I see you.
This is what we want in a love affair. We want to breathe...
I have a child who is getting ready to apply to colleges now, and that is making me go back and ponder many things about my own college application experience . This has me thinking about how we fully belong in, and are excluded from, the...
I recently had a lovely conversation with a group of young people , beautiful people, who are searching and seeking for a life that is spiritually open and porous, inviting and welcoming, yet rooted and grounded in teachings and practices that...
The holy and blessed month of Ramadan is upon us. It’s a holy month for Muslims: we work on inner purification and discipline, as well as an embodied practice of empathy and justice, identifying with those for whom abstaining from food is not a...
A few years ago, I went into the Shinto shrine of Fushimi-Inari in the lovely city of Kyoto for the first time. It was a warm and humid summer visit to this thousand-year-old shrine, and a few of us made the pilgrimage together. A lovely...
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for Islamic Art, an extension of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, recently announced the 11 recipients nationwide of its annual Building Bridges Grants Program awards, two of them based in Durham: Duke...
