“It’s hard to explain without sounding overly romantic, but when you’re in the presence of someone truly good—not performatively good, not “publicly moral” or selectively kind—but genuinely, deeply, relentlessly good… something shifts in you. You feel lighter. You feel braver. You feel like humanity, for all its wounds and wickedness, is still worth fighting for…”

When I find myself in times of trouble,

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be…

Be human in this most inhuman of ages. Guard the image of one another. We are the image of god.

Who is my neighbor?

“There are some people so hungry God can only appear as bread…”

If faith is up to us; and our feelings; that will often lead straight to, “crucify him.”

“Gather out of star-dust

            Earth-dust,

            Cloud-dust,

And splinters of hail,

One handful of dream-dust

            Not for sale.” Langston Hughes

“When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wednesday February 12 is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday. The Jersey City Lincoln Association—the oldest continuously celebrating organization in the country—has commemorated every birthday since his death in 1865. They have asked me to offer a blessing.

Today is the anniversary of Norman Rockwell’s birthday. One of his most well-known paintings is of a little girl being escorted by Federal Marshals to elementary school. That was less then 65 years ago…