The other day, we observed the winter solstice. The day with the fewest hours of sunlight in the calendar year—the longest, darkest night. I happen to live 100 feet above the Lake Michigan shore, and I am often treated to beautiful sunrises if I get up early enough–the beauty of …
Read More »Religion
Jewish and Truly Perplexed: A Cantorial Origin Story
So how did I get here? I mean wind up as a Jewish Cantor? A Hazzan and full member of the Jewish clergy. I wasn’t born to it. Nope. I was raised in the most secular of Skokie homes. Sunday School, not Hebrew school (parental units though that would be …
Read More »Book Review: ‘Metaphysical Africa’ by Michael Muhammad Knight
'Metaphysical Africa: Truth and Blackness in the Ansaru Allah Community by Michael Muhammad Knight is an important and well researched book.
Read More »Music Review: Cappella Romana – ‘The Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia’ (CD + Blu-ray)
This remarkable new recording from the choir Cappella Romana uses digital processing to recreate Byzantine chant as worshipers in Hagia Sophia would have heard it.
Read More »Book Review: ‘Along The Trenches’ by Navid Kermani
'Along The Trenches' by Navid Kermani is a amazingly well written and easy to comprehend book creating a stark picture of reality in modern Eastern Europe.
Read More »Book Review: ‘Revolutionary Threads’ by Bobby Sullivan
'Revolutionary Threads' by Bobby Sullivan undermines its own attempts at revealing some historical truths with its use of questionable source material.
Read More »Movie Review: ‘Regarding the Case of Joan of Arc’
'Regarding the Case of Joan of Arc' works out to be a metaphor for the current radicalization of Republican Christians in the USA, especially their hardcore faction and those advocating the use of violence to restore their alleged supremacy.
Read More »Book Review: ‘Rushing the Floodgates of Heaven’ by Nathan A. French
New book, 'Rushing the Floodgates of Heaven' by Nathan A. French, shares one pastor’s unique and personal relationship with God.
Read More »Theater Review (NYC): ‘The Dream of the Rood’
Western Europe's earliest known dream-vision poem, newly translated from the Anglo-Saxon and adapted for the stage.
Read More »Roy Moore, Donald Trump, and the Fall of White Evangelical Christians
A little less than of half of the people who cast a vote in Alabama voted for an accused child molester, it took the black vote, especially that of black women, to bring about the right outcome.
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