Nancy’s Essays

When America Met Thich Nhat Hanh December 23, 2021
. by Jim Forest I first met Thich Nhat Hanh in May 1966. At the time Lyndon Johnson was America’s president. The steadily rising level of US troops in Vietnam reached 384,300 that year and within the next eighteen months would expand to half a million. But support for the war was shrinking. The nation […]
Eyes of Compassion: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh March 25, 2021
“This appreciative portrait of a humble, devout leader should hold appeal across spiritual denominations.” — Publishers Weekly Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the world’s most influential and revered spiritual teachers, but when Jim Forest met him in the mid-1960s, he was a little-known Vietnamese Zen monk touring the United States on behalf of the cause of […]
Peter Maurin: Prophet of The Green Revolution March 23, 2021
The Forgotten Radical Peter Maurin: Easy Essays from the Catholic Worker By Peter Maurin, edited by Lincoln Rice / Fordham University Press, 2020 Review by Jim Forest In bringing out the complete writings of Peter Maurin, editor Lincoln Rice has put Peter Maurin back on the map of people who deserve widespread attention. The timing […]
The Duty of Hope February 16, 2021
By Jim Forest The theme of this retreat is “Hope in Turbulent Times” but, as I think about it, for a great many people the times we’re living in are worse than turbulent — for many they engender hopelessness. Right now we are surrounded by a ring of crises. For starters, we’re meeting together on-line […]