Marion Dane Bauer's Blog, page 5
October 29, 2019
The Birth Day of Life
i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of […]
The post The Birth Day of Life appeared first on Just Thinking.
October 22, 2019
On Finding a New Vision
When I’m teaching, I often talk about revision as re-vision, finding a new vision. It sounds good, talking about it that way. But the reality is that a new vision can be hard to come by. And letting go of the old vision to make room for the new can be even harder. In fact, […]
The post On Finding a New Vision appeared first on Just Thinking.
October 15, 2019
You are a Marvel
When will we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to each of them: do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never […]
The post You are a Marvel appeared first on Just Thinking.
October 8, 2019
A Hard Way to Earn a Living
Writing is a hard way to earn a living. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a privileged one, too. More than thirty years ago I left a marriage of 28 years and began cobbling together a living from writing, teaching and lecturing. I don’t know how I would have survived—emotionally as well as financially—if that cobbling […]
The post A Hard Way to Earn a Living appeared first on Just Thinking.
October 1, 2019
To Live in This World
To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. Mary Oliver
The post To Live in This World appeared first on Just Thinking.
September 24, 2019
Celebrating Banned Book Week
I’m reminded whenever Banned Book Week rolls around that I am the proud author of a much-banned book. Probably more of my books have been banned than I will ever know, but the banning of On My Honor is the one I know most about. In fact, for some time, it appeared every year on […]
The post Celebrating Banned Book Week appeared first on Just Thinking.
September 17, 2019
To Fix The Entire World
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It […]
The post To Fix The Entire World appeared first on Just Thinking.
September 10, 2019
Moral Courage
Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change. Robert F. Kennedy
The post Moral Courage appeared first on Just Thinking.
September 3, 2019
Remembering Childhood
Recently someone asked me, “Why is it that you have such detailed memories of your childhood?” She commented that she did not. I reached for an answer and came up with pure air. Why do I remember? Why doesn’t everyone? Years ago, I had a student whose work was technically competent but quite lacking in […]
The post Remembering Childhood appeared first on Just Thinking.
August 27, 2019
A Nation of Becoming
America is a nation that is always dynamically evolving—a nation of becoming, its composition and character constantly transformed by migrations from many corners of the world, its promise made manifest not by an assertion of a singular or supremacist racial and religious identity, but by the recognition of the interconnected realities of a complex of […]
The post A Nation of Becoming appeared first on Just Thinking.
