Month: September 2010

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Please Remember the Pakistani Flood Victims

Please watch this video from the PBS NewsHour.

100,000 square kilometers flooded. 30,000 kilometers of roads flooded. 9 million acres of crops flooded. 21,000,000 people effected. 150 new villages flooded as water shifts.

This is why we are doing Artists for Pakistan and why in addition to that small effort people need to pay attention to this story. Please keep this story in your mind and give wherever you can. And pray for the people of Pakistan.

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How shall we speak of weight?

In writing for Catapult magazine, I have written about pornography, grieving, conflict, and race, but seldom has the prospect of articulating my thoughts and feelings about a topic been harder than writing about weight. My interior landscape as it reflects on my own external form and also how we talk about such issues with one another in community-or rather don’t talk about such issues-are so complex, involving such depth of feeling, that the task seemed too hard, principally because of the wounding it might cause others. And, consequently, I did not manage to write an article this time. After several failed attempts at an essay,though, I did manage to write a sort of poem which gets at some of what I was after. It is not much, but if it precipitates any thoughts which you would like to talk to me about, please do not hesitate to email me.

This issue entitled “Weight,” is not only about the weight of bodies, but also reflects on other conceptual notions of weightiness, with some very personal writing. I especially commend to you the editor’s piece which encourages us who live in privileged Western contexts to ask God for more, not less, weight in life.