To promote singing, and a stronger sense of community, THE SONG OF LUKE retells the gospel story as a poem arranged in stanzas of four lines with lines of four beats, rhyming every other line, a ballad form called long meter. The poem retains the meaning of conventional versions of the story of Jesus, while offering suitable texts for musical settings of the entire gospel or any passage of particular interest. The text does not include any of the false and sinful condemnations of Jews which have historically contributed to the practice of eliminationist anti-semitism. The crucifixion of Jesus...

The late sixties and early seventies in America spawned all manner of idealistic dreams through which young people thought they could re-invent the notion of the modern. These three stories investigate the ways that established institutions at first allured, and then later deluded, the reluctantly willing protagonist Jack Lindsay. We see the virtuous earnestness of the young teacher waylaid by the shrewd encroachments of his own desire; the continued bending of his sexual morality to pursue the attractions of opulent living and haute couture; and, finally, the drowning of a young couple's...

The late sixties and early seventies in America spawned all manner of idealistic dreams through which young people thought they could re-invent the notion of the modern. These five stories investigate the ways that avoidance of commitment, in both public and personal spheres, leads to critical choices for the reluctant protagonist Jack Lindsay. We see the sad force of a role model's suicide; the calculated betrayals of unsatisfied love; the hidden pathology behind a conspiracy; the hard-heartedness of raw personal preference; the vicious and circuitous powers of alcohol addiction. The voice...

Reminiscent of Carl Sandburg's beloved children's poetry, these stories were ad-libbed by the author for his children and then written in a notebook for later refinement, which never came to pass; so that they retain the atmosphere of spontaneity and lame humor often encountered in the last half hour before bedtime, as in this example: I would say the highlight of the whole evening came during the Amateur Hour when three of the most common backyard vegetables from our own neighborhood sang a lovely trio of their own devising, which means they wrote the words and music, taught the song to the...

"The theory behind writing these poems is that if you are feeling miserable, and you write about how you are feeling, with as much precision and thoroughness as you can muster, you will induce in yourself a kind of satisfaction that you are able to make something worthwhile emerge from the misery. " "The theory behind publishing these poems is that if someone else with similar feelings to your own comes along and reads about these painful states of mind, that person may also come to feel a little better, either from a better understanding or from a general sense of companionship."

Rarely, if ever, has history experienced a more penetrating demonstration of the overarching power of the human spirit in a time of trial. This book is a poetic interpretation of the inquiry and condemnation of Jeanne, the maid of Domremy, recorded in 1431. Drawing on the verbatim record of the trial, this book gives the modern reader a rare look at the speech and personal demeanor of an illiterate person in the Middle Ages; made rarer by the gender and the unique personality of Jeanne, who here both originates and personifies our universal concept of human dignity."

Thomas Paine claims the title The Father of the American Revolution because of Common Sense, the pro-independence monograph pamphlet he anonymously published on January 10, 1776; the work quickly spread among the literate, and, in three months, sold 120,000 copies throughout the American colonies (with only two million free inhabitants), making it a best-selling work in eighteenth-century America. It is here given a concise metered form suitable for theatrical adaptation and public performance.

Traditional indigenous cultures in many parts of the world have displayed a profound appreciation of the relationship between human and ecosystem health, something global culture is trying to rediscover under the label of sustainability. Since the beginning of time, human beings have told the story of their own beginning, and of the origins of the four directions, the heavens, the God-People, the earth, and all its creatures. The Mayan creation story is a wild and wooly epic showing the repeated errors of the gods in attempting to perfect a human creature. The story is here interpreted as an...

In the darkest hours of the 17th century German witch hunts, Spee, a Jesuit priest, meditated on the confessions of accused women and resolved to subject the church's torture practices to a rigorous logical analysis. The result is a cogent and persuasive argument against all torture, and a demonstration of the overarching power of the human spirit in a time of trial. This book combines poetic meditations on Spee's uniquely compassionate essays with starkly lit photographs (from a state collection in Toledo, Spain) of many of the torture instruments used by church functionaries.

Traditional indigenous cultures in many parts of the world have displayed a profound appreciation of the relationship between human and ecosystem health, something global culture is once again trying to rediscover under the label of sustainability. A spiritual resource for sustainable living, these verses record the inimitable practicality of stories and proverbs told by the Igbo people of West Africa. If you imitate the upright, Then you will be upright; If you imitate the crooked, Then you will be crooked. The collection of sayings is based on life in villages, farms and forests, treating...