Sunset at Newport Beach

Beautiful sunset, when the world looks perfect and filled with new promises...

Gutenberg Window in Denison Library at Scripps College

In a college dedicated to the formation of women, there is this giant stained glass window -- beautiful, glorious, multifaceted -- and the two central figures are male: Gutenberg and Ben Franklin.

Irony.

The theme centers around an inscription: "Dedicated to the greater wisdom of women."

Tan Le on TED

: http://on.ted.com/AiOu

Finding Our Spaces: Niebuhr House

Welcome to the Niebuhr House. It's not really anything so formal, but I like calling it the Niebuhr House to remind myself that back in the early 1900s, a smart, old German theologian lived in my house. He is long dead and buried, but I suspect his spirit lives on somewhere nearby.

We make such commotion about what a space is called, don't we? The space in this little three bedroom house where we do our office work, where I sit writing this blogpost, isn't called the "office" but is the "study". When Richard Niebuhr was here, this was called the "pastor's study."

I find myself incapable of thinking about writing any poetry seriously if I don't have pen and paper in front of me -- so this typing is not really writing but merely white noise, to keep my head occupied while I (and my parents and the whole world) wait for the real genius to appear.


I won't bore you with the details of our laborious journey/move into this quaint little abode, but suffice it to say, while here, I feel - like goosebumps on my skin - as if I need to be, daily, just as industrious and diligent as I assume the dear Rev. would want me to be if he were still alive. I must say smart things, entertain intelligentsia, behave like an educated young lady. Richard N would probably frown on my watching I Love Lucy reruns and Food Network food challenges. I should be watching Rachel Maddow and browsing TED Talk clips and reading the Bible front to back everyday.

So while I am incapable of following in the footsteps or living up to the namesake of this house, I endeavor in my own ordinary way to make a difference.


I've started collaborating on a fantastic online journal, Cedars, which is a virtual space for excellent fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. It is a gathering place, at once similar to but different from the Niebuhr House. Nonetheless, I imagine myself immersed at the foci of creative processes. How lucky am I to participate actively instead of being a spectator (oh, Parker Palmer, wouldn't you be proud to hear that I remember your words of wisdom when you last visited Washington University?)! 

Where is your space for creative thinking, inspiration, and rejuvenation?

Cedars, an Online Literary Journal, goes .com

One of the most powerful ways we can change the communities in which we live, and the world which we inhabit, is through the power of words. Ordinarily, I forget that I (and you and we together) have immense capacity for making good, for wielding this power for the greater benefit of all. So, a little while ago, I was lucky enough, and still feel so, to have been invited to join the editorial team of Cedars, an Online Literary Journal of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Telling myself not to feel and act like a complete incompetent, I signed on and we are now looking at a fantastic second issue that is forthcoming at the end of this month.

For me, Cedars is a sustainable community and virtual space that pays homage to words and language, to our love of words, as well as the human tendency to grapple with the power of words -- for good or evil. We make a space for words to be written, spoken, seen, performed, lived, morphed, inverted, subverted, contorted -- and through that space, we slowly become change-agents for a sustainable world. At least, that is my hope.

Check us out at:  http://www.cedarsmag.com/