I was in Bethesda, Maryland, for the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference last weekend. Here’s what I found out about the religiously unaffiliated in America. Read more.
Barbara’s Riffs on Life
When Your Kids Don’t Fight — Enough
My children do not tease each other like the normal sibling pair. They are nice to each other. I worry. Where did Jon and I go wrong?
Amazing Clay — More Wonderful Stuff from the Berkeley Art Center Show
Some more wonderful stuff made of clay by three artists featured in the show, "Local Treasures: Bay Area Ceramics," at the Berkeley Art Center through Nov. 18 — Wanxin Zhang, Ted Fullwood and Clayton Bailey. Read more.
Ceramics Envy at the Berkeley Art Center — I Want to Get My Hands into that Earthy, Messy, Squishy Clay
I’m a writer, but whenever I visit my friend Nancy Selvin’s ceramics studio, I wonder whether I’d rather be working with something more tangible than words and ideas — like clay.
Religion Scholar Huston Smith at 93 — ‘Be Happy!’
Ninety-three-year-old Huston Smith rolled into the Sagrada bookstore in Oakland, California, in a push wheelchair the other day, ready to do what he does best – say something. At 93 and plagued as he is by hearing loss, weakened eyesight and debilitating osteoporosis, you’d think the popular author and religion scholar would be ready to take it easy. Not so. Read more.
Buddhist Writing — Wisdom or Chicken Shit?
Jack Kornfield and Sylvia Boorstein are two of my favorite Buddhist writers. But I don’t follow their advice entirely — I don’t meditate.