Author Archives: Doug Cumming

The two of us once hiked far into an enchanted forest in Italy called the Sybillini Mountains. From a deep ravine with dancing waters we climbed a path up and up through a stand of pristine trees, mostly some kind … Continue reading →

Post script to the post “Three Little Words”: Jesus’s answer to Thomas in the Gospel of John, that he is “The Way, the Truth and the Life,” makes a claim that is particularly hard to defend, much less understand, in … Continue reading →

Heval Kelli, a Kurdish Syrian Muslim refugee living in Clarkston, just outside the Perimeter from here, exudes the kind of human empathy you can see in his very being. He listens quietly and attentively, and in responding to what even … Continue reading →

Changing names honoring Confederate generals and removing memorials, apart from a few practical challenges, is relatively easy. Monuments can be moved into museums, and names on street signs can be changed. (At W&L, the four-ton statue of Lee napping in … Continue reading →

Moving in silent desperationKeeping an eye on the Holy LandA hypothetical destinationSay, who is this walking man? The baritone of James Taylor bewitches with a melody that long ago wormed into my brain for keeps. It sleeps, then can’t you … Continue reading →

“Energy” has many meanings. But there’s one way to see it as everything. Energy is Man’s discovery of fire, how civilizations ate (from hunter gathering to farming), the population-exploding Industrial Revolution, and the cause of Gulf Wars. It’s fossil fuels … Continue reading →

Common Good Governing began in 2017 with a dream. That is, literally, “a dream,” a bad dream that Lester Levine woke up with about a week after Trump won the Election of 2016. It was also just after Levine’s first … Continue reading →