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Last spring, when I visited Major Tony De Stefano at Malone House, a guesthouse converted into an inpatient unit at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., Tony had been there for close to a year. He was undergoing treatment for a lung disease contracted in Afghanistan, probably from inhaling fine
Collette Kayakez sells dried fish in her urban neighborhood in Lubumbashi, the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Not long ago, her business was failing. It is hard to keep track of prices and sales if you do not know how to read and write. Ms. Kayakez, her husband, Ibert,
Faith in Focus
In early January of 2003, I was at dinner with Martina, who is now my wife, when I noticed a lump on the right side of my collarbone. It felt tough and nodular, but there was no pain. Martina and I tried to have a normal dinner, but concern got the best of us, and we dropped the rest of our evening
Of Many Things
It isn’t often that you get the chance to help a new literary sensation. A few years ago, I got a friendly note from Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian Jesuit who was studying theology in Kenya. Uwem had written an article for America in November 1996 with the felicitous title “Nigerian Roman Cathol
Arts & CultureBooks
This memoir begins with Patricia Hampl rsquo s accidental viewing of the Matisse painting Woman Before an Aquarium which waylaid her on her way to the cafeteria of the Chicago Art Institute to meet a friend some 34 years ago She stood transfixed absorbing the portrait of a woman gazing at a goldf
News
Mideast Patriarchs Address InstabilityCatholic patriarchs of the Middle East said political instability across the region must be tackled if the current Christian exodus is to be stemmed. The negative impact of this instability on local economies and services, as well as on the psychology within com
Arts & CultureBooks
The Conservative Soul is a dense passionate argument for a simple thesis In the United States true conservatism has been hijacked by the forces of fundamentalism rendering the Republican Party increasingly unacceptable to principled conservatives In Andrew Sullivan rsquo s narrative fundamenta
The 1973 oil embargo affected not just the United States but other oil-dependent nations. I lived in London at the time at an international youth hostel and worked for a British construction firm that built oil pipelines. At every petrol station, cars lined up for hours (as in the United States), bu
The Word
He central characters in Mark rsquo s Gospel are Jesus and the Twelve though a number of minor characters are spread throughout the entire narrative At the end of Chapter 10 however a series of lesser characters emerge who in contrast to the Twelve who become increasingly obtuse respond to J
Current Comment
Checks and BalancesTypically, Americans think of governmental checks and balances as the interplay among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. But when all three branches lean toward the same political party and have the ideological cohesion to override minority views (as has been the ca
Arts & CultureBooks
These days as I a citizen by right of birth of the United States and Ireland wheel my grandson Navid a citizen by right of birth of the United States and Iran through my local shopping mall I look about at people of all shades and shapes and combinations wishing a world of justice and harmon
Columns
A light has gone out in the house next door. The elderly gentleman who lived there was a friend as well as a neighbor. A light in his porch always assured us that he was well. I really miss that light each night now as darkness falls. In some small way a light has gone out in the world too, because
Arts & CultureBooks
Given the literary scandal that more or less led Edna O rsquo Brien to flee Ireland following the publication of her Country Girls trilogy in the 1960 rsquo s it would have been understandable if she had spent the rest of her life bashing Ireland and writing books about noble outsiders persecuted b
He neither asks for money nor passes out donation envelopes after his speeches. He neither wants pity for his situation nor accolades for his work. He speaks to anyone who will listen and his mission is to encourage others to get their hands dirty for peace. I am a Palestinian, a proud Palestinian,
Arts & CultureBooks
In Running Alone the distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McGregor Burns tracks almost a half-century of what he considers critically flawed American presidential leadership His starting point is John F Kennedy rsquo s success in the 1960 election in which he ran his campaign wit
Editorials
Since Americans pay more for health insurance and health care than do people in most other highly developed countries, it is reasonable to ask: Are we getting our money’s worth, if value is measured by a long and presumably healthy life? Are our national health expenditures a good investment,
Arts & CultureBooks
To read A Balm for Gilead is to want author/friar/physician Daniel Sulmasy and his disciples to be your doctor, nurse or therapist. A practitioner with a deep sense of spirituality who considers healing an encounter with the divine will not blame us for our bad habits, will not be repulsed by what illness does to our bodies, will not give up on us when treatments do not work and will see in us the opportunity to serve God.
Sulmasy takes his title from the spiritual sung in his Harlem parish:
There is a balm in Gilead
The Arab oil embargo of 1973, initiated to protest U.S. support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, was a watershed event in U.S. energy history. It sparked higher gasoline prices and, before it was lifted in March 1974, raised concerns about a possible energy crisis. But ethical issues relating to wor
Letters
Lesser Love
Twice now during the past week, a squirrel has eaten away parts of my windowsill and gnawed four-inch holes in the screen to facilitate its entry to my house.
Yes, I have read with appreciation Mary Oliver’s poem Making the House Ready for the Lord (9/25). Come in, come in, she says to animals seeking shelter as winter dawns on a snowy world.
And what is my response? Unlike the poet, I have for God’s creatures who live out there in my yard a lesser and imperfect love that stops upon my doorstep. Beyond that boundary I offer a crust of last night’s pizza, nuts and suet, apples, whole wheat bread crumbs. To these you are welcome. Help yourself, I say, but keep your distance. This house is mine. For the limits to my hospitality, may the Lord forgive me.
And another thing: Stop digging up my daffodils.
Katharine Byrne
Current Comment
Justice in the Rift ValleyThose with long memories, as well as admirers of Isak Dinesen’s writings, may recall the Honorable Hugh Cholmondeley, the third Baron Delamere, who was one of the original white settlers of British East Africa in the 1900’s. Lord Delamere, and later his family,