Category: ethics

Lifestories

18 March 2025
culture, historydialogueseducationessays, articlesethicsinterviewsmedia, technologypoliticsquestionsreligion, spirituality
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  Spirituality is a life lived in resonance with fundamental principles and powers, often symbolized as the first, last, deepest, highest, or most central to life Religion is spirituality organized into a tradition, system or institution The lives of ordinary religious people haven’t been well documented or studied. Until recently, scholars have concentrated on religious…

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The Origin of Evil

5 May 2023
apocalypsearms, guns, weaponsdeath, mortality, the deadethicsfood, meals, eatingmetaphor, symbolpassagepeace, conflict, warritual, festivaltheoryworldview, ontology
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Long, long ago the first animal ate the second animal. Then the first animal became food for the third animal. All animals hungered, hunted, ate, and became food for other animals. The world was an epic food orgy—a bone-crushing, blood-drinking drama unburdened with self-consciousness or guilt. Over eons and eons animals evolved into primates, then…

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The Barn and the Lab

9 February 2023
dialoguesethicsillnesslandmetaphor, symbolperformance, play, entertainmentreligion, spiritualityritual, festivalthings, objectswater
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                                   Community Restoration and Ritual Experimentation                                                 Ronald L. Grimes and Susan L. Scott   Below is a conversation between Susan Scott, founder of the award-winning Walkerton Water Stories Project (WWSP), and Ron Grimes, Director of the Ritual Studies Lab. Susan, a writer, and Ron, a ritual studies scholar, contemplate the possibilities for ritual…

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Disarming Boys

24 September 2019
arms, guns, weaponscreative nonfictionessays, articlesethicsfamilypeace, conflict, war
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Originally published in The Canopy Review 01 (2019): 10-26. Excerpts read at the Langston Hughes House, Harlem, September 23, 2019. World War II rages as my parents rivet B-24 bombers at Consolidated Aircraft. Home from the graveyard shift, Dad’s teaching me to box. Knees knocked, I’m punching back. Later, he’s equipped me with a toy…

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