Mark's Blog

It is a mind numbing and soul wrenching turn of events. The Department of Defense is now referred to as the Department of War. The President has indicated that he will soon deploy National Guard troops to Chicago. On September 2, the US Navy attacked a ship in...

“Don’t ask what the world needs”, Howard Thurman (author, Christian mystic, civil rights leader, mentor to Martin Luther King, 1899-1981) famously wrote; “Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who come alive.” ...

We are living in an emotional and spiritual pandemic. A pandemic of resentment.  Resentment is a psychic virus that can disable minds and hearts, and wreak havoc on public health. The genesis of the virus predates the book of Genesis, but it is in the first book of...

Public health is under siege, not just with vaccine retrenchment and the gutting of the CDC, NIH and God knows how many research programs, but now with the deployment of armed national guard troops in our nation's capitol. Last week I participated in a working group...

Like so many of us, the chaos, cruelty and carelessness coming out of the White House over the past several months has left me anxious, afraid and agitated. The relentless cascade of statements, actions and punishments has made it incredibly difficult to maintain a...

I struggled a bit to prepare a homily for my friend David’s memorial service, which was held this past weekend. He was a complicated man. His intellectual prowess was extraordinary, but it also contributed to a fatal arrogance that led him to believe that he could...

“Don’t make me come down there – God”. I first saw this phrase several years ago on a billboard coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel as I drove into Manhattan. God was pictured looking down on all the turmoil, trauma and degradation that humanity can muster – and was...

I didn’t intend for it to be a self-imposed exile, but in some ways that is how it turned out.  When I graduated from college in 1973 I lived in Kyoto, Japan for two years on a fellowship that involved teaching and being the resident Fellow in a university dormitory....

On Sunday evening, July 6, the Braver Faith team of Braver Angels hosted a webinar entitled "Faith and Freedom Through Reflection and Prayer." The event was scheduled to honor the Fourth of July weekend. A link to the 75 minute webinar can be found  here.a link  It...