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About Barbara
I’m Barbara Falconer Newhall and I’ve got a serious case of the human condition.
I’ve done it all: career, family, house, garden, and a prize-winning book, "Wrestling with God." The result: I'm a woman of years, lots of them, who can't help seeing things from the funny side.
Tucked away on this website are hundreds of riffs on life. I hope you’ll seek them out – and keep me company as I discover the humor, if not the meaning, in what life throws my way. Learn More
THE LATEST
Huston Smith on the Most Important Thing You Can Do in 2025
After nearly a century devoted to the study of life and truth and the meaning of it all, religion scholar Huston Smith had some advice for his fans. Read more.
BARBARA’S BOOK
★ Publishers Weekly, starred review
Any seeker of any faith will be blessed to read the words of this fine author and observer. Read more.
An inveterate doubter for most of her adult life, journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall embarks upon a quest to find a way to believe in God in the twenty-first century.
The result is Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, which details her search for the Divine in the lives of diverse Americans – from a fundamentalist Christian to a progressive Muslim to a Buddhist monk.Seekers of all persuasions will feel represented here, from priests, ministers, and rabbis to engineers, physicists, and avowed non-believers . . . a riverflow of a book. — Phil Cousineau, host of PBS’s Global Spirit
Recent Riffs on Life
The Art of Rhetoric — If a Two-Year-Old Can Master It, So Can You
Even my toddler knew how to ply the art of rhetoric. It’s something we humans use every day, on each other, starting at an early age. Read more.
Christmas Carols — Listen Here for the Real Thing
Tired of the safe, watered-down Christmas music now playing in shopping malls? Try these Christmas carols, the real ones. Read more.
DON’T MISS!
Buddhist Teacher Jack Kornfield on Sex, Drugs and Enlightenment
Want to know more about the sex lives of Buddhist teachers in America? Are you considering downing some ecstasy or a bit of mushroom to fast-track your spiritual growth? Wondering about that person in the meditation hall who seems to be having a psychotic break? Check out Jack Kornfield’s book.
The Rise of the “Nones” – Young Americans Are Doing Without Church
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.
A Cry in the Night — ‘Mommy, I’m Scared’
The baby books assert that American babies and children are ready to sleep through till morning and grant their parents an undisturbed night’s sleep by the time they are a year or so old. Not so in our household. A story from the Mommy Years. Read more.