I no longer write a great deal about the everyday machinations of the current regime. “The eruptions and the news stories about them,” Rebecca Solnit notes, “stumble over each other, dogpile, shove each other aside, crowd each other out of our attention, shout each other down.” There are many other places, with writers far more knowledgeable, to find that news and sort out what’s important.
However, as we’ve unwisely entered Israel’s war against Iran, I did want to share three observations that I am keeping front of mind.
First, don’t believe promises made by people without principles.
Since he entered the political arena, Donald Trump has said he would not get the US into a Middle Eastern War. He just did. The escalation was announced on social media, of course, with language appropriate for a fifth grade bully. As Tressie McMillian Cottom wrote in the New York Times, Trump’s violent talk is “the official political communication strategy of the ruling party and its followers. And that ruling party is stripping this country for parts.” It is what you do when you don’t have principles beyond self-enrichment and self-preservation.
Second, this is what happens when politicians just trying to stay out of prison are elected to a nation’s highest office.
Solnit, again:
“It’s worth remembering that this is a war of aggression started by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a criminal who is massively unpopular in his own country. And that Netanyahu opposed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA with Iran that was preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon – until Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018, against the wishes of the four major powers who, with the US, negotiated the deal and in opposition to the wishes of the majority of Americans.”
And of course, Donald Trump is a convicted felon 34-times over.
“Some of the things they say may be true. Many of the things they say most assuredly won’t be. But please remember that informing you with truth is never their goal when they talk to you.. They don’t spend their time trying to give you the best facts that they have at their disposal. They spend their time trying to create the story you will swallow that lets them do what they want at your expense.
Maybe some day we’ll know what’s gone down, but it won’t be tonight and it won’t be tomorrow.
The people who are controlling the narrative, Donnie and Bibi, very much need you to believe them because they are criminals and the only thing keeping them out of jail is their ability to stay in office.”
Ever since William Randolph Hearst fanned the flames to ignite the Spanish American War (and probably well before that time), America’s corporate media has been extremely hawkish when it comes to war. Don’t expect any difference this time. Solnit, in yesterday’s column, wrote that “the worst of the mainstream media will get behind it, as they did the lies that justified getting into the Iraq war, and that will confuse the people who rely on those news sources. Brand new Iran expert Van Jones ranted on CNN that “Iran is not a normal country” as he justified the attack.”
It was my wise grandmother who said, “Don’t believe what you hear and only half of what you read.”
Good advice to follow in these times.
More to come . . .
DJB
UPDATE apropos of #3: As home subscribers to the New York Times, we saw this full-page ad in Sunday’s edition . . . the same day I posted this piece on MORE TO COME. As one online commentator wrote, this is a sneaky way to insert an honest headline into the NY Times.
The Jewish German philosopher Walter Benjamin famously said that cultural treasures “owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents that have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries.” In his Thesis on the Philosophy of History, Benjamin wrote that “It is more arduous to honor the memory of anonymous beings than that of the renowned. The construction of history is consecrated to the memory of the nameless.”
Places of all types are important in how we understand our past, as they key both individual and collective memories. Sacred spaces—such as the churches, cathedrals, monasteries, and synagogues seen on our recent trips to Europe—are especially important in exemplifying both the beauty and challenges of landmarks. At home and around the globe we have generally chosen to save that which reflects well on us—beautiful buildings and sites that uplift. But among the challenges we face is how to tell the stories of the craftspeople and workers who made those places possible but who have not been part of the traditional narrative. Because religious institutions are at least in part human constructs, they are fallible with many sordid chapters in their history. How do we interpret these sites to include stories of those who have traditionally been marginalized?
Consecrated to the memory of the nameless
In the beauty of places such as the Strasbourg Cathedral, we often lose sight of the lives of those who built these landmarks (photo credit: UNESCO)
My friend and former colleague Adrian Scott Fine recently wrote that when we study places with difficult histories, “how we choose to either confront, understand, and re-contextualize a dark complicated past or erase and ignore what these places can do to teach us and those that follow” is important. Memory and identity are often disputed. Places, however, can transcend specific interpretation. Each of us will have different interpretations of the things we see, but the continued existence of the place permits the revision, reevaluation, and reinterpretation of memories over time.
Too many places that we’ve saved have not recognized the people who built them. That’s true for Irish, German, Eastern European, and Asian immigrants at a host of places across the U.S.
Immigrants statue, erected outside the Harrison County Courthouse in Clarksburg, West Virginia, as part of the celebration of the city’s bicentennial in 1985 (photo by Carol Highsmith)
We are only now beginning to tell the fuller story of how the enslaved built many of the monuments in the U.S. and Europe, not to mention that their labor built our economies. With its long history of war, Europe has many churches where the clerics and leaders of certain periods supported governments in their actions to divide, ostracize, and even kill people who were designated as “others.”
Our identity—both personal and civic—is transformed over time. By preserving these places we can acknowledge the deeper, layered history and appreciate the continuous critical revision of identity informed by the past. There is much to celebrate in these landmarks of Europe. There is also much left out of traditional narratives that needs to be rediscovered and included. With that broader perspective in mind, I want to share some of the images from our recent trip while celebrating the unnamed craftspeople who made them possible and honoring the memory of those whose lives were harmed by actions of institutions that often acted as more of a secular state than as a place of religious refuge.
First views
I’ve long been intrigued by the first glimpse one catches of a church, cathedral, or monastery while moving through a historic city. When seen down a narrow street as in Strasbourg, some only hint at the grandeur to come. The scale may open up more fully as one moves to a main artery. These landmarks coexist with the cityscape even as they tower over it.
(Credit: Greg Wilson on Unsplash)
Others, as in Basel, are sited on a large plaza where their place in the community—at least at the time of construction—was clear. Or, as in Cochem, Germany, they help frame these public squares.
Basler Münster (Cathedral), probably the most famous landmark in Basel, Switzerland
The tower of St. Martin’s Church, Cochem, Germany, helping to frame the public square
First sightings are often from a river, lake, or other body of water, such as the Rhine River in France and Germany. Here these sacred spaces might suggest a place of stability as one is carried along by the current of the river . . . or life.
Others are more isolated, glimpsed across a vineyard or forest, as with the Abbey of St. Hildegard in Rudesheim, Germany. Founded by Hildegard von Bingen in 1165, this community of Benedictine nuns was dissolved in 1804 but was then restored with new buildings a century later.
Resilience
Virtually every sacred landmark seen on this trip had been severely damaged at some point in time, often from war. In Strasbourg, the cathedral was bombarded during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, while during World War II, the Cologne Cathedral was the only major building not destroyed by bombing raids, as it was used by Allied pilots to target the rest of the city.
Bombing of Strasbourg Cathedral1870 siege of Strasbourg
Ruins of Cologne following Allied bombing in 1945 (All three photos from Wikimedia)
In Cochem, St. Martin’s is a major religious landmark. It has a long history and is dedicated to the city’s saint patron. The church, along with the rest of the city, was extensively bombed by the Allies during World War II. The church, including its iconic bell tower was rebuilt, and in an act of reconciliation eight stained-glass windows by British artist Graham Jones were installed in 2009. These gems look like watercolors and they reflect the colors of Cochem’s lush natural surroundings.
St. Martin’s Church, Cochem, Germany
Exquisite craftsmanship on exteriors . . .
The craftsmanship is often what first attracts us to these landmarks.
We were in Amsterdam on this trip, but our visit to the city’s beautiful and historic Portuguese Synagogue actually took place last April. Nonetheless, it deserves a mention in this overview of sacred spaces in Switzerland, France, Germany, and The Netherlands.
Music
Several times on this trip we happened upon music while touring these beautiful spaces. In Cologne we arrived on Pentecost Monday in the midst of a mass with the Cardinal, an orchestra, and choir.
In Engelberg we lifted our hearts as the monks’ singing of Vespers washed over us at the end of the day. On that occasion and throughout our trip we saw, and sometimes heard, magnificent and beautiful organs, both historic and modern.
StrasbourgCochemHeidelbergEngelbergLucerne
And we also visited the home city of one of the church’s most well-known composers: Hildegard von Bingen.
“In the Middle Ages, she was regarded as the herald of the approaching end of the world. The humanists celebrated Hildegard as the first great woman in literary history. During the Reformation, Hildegard was often invoked because she had used drastic words to complain about abuses in the papal church. Based on some miracle stories, the Romantics created the image of the “popular saint Hildegard”. Since the industrial age, holistic “Hildegard medicine” has become popular as a gentle alternative to apparatus medicine. Today, Hildegard is regarded by many as a pioneer for the emancipation of women. As the most important composer in the history of music, she is known above all in the USA, Australia and Japan. Hildegard’s holistic view of creation gives us valuable orientation in dealing with climate change. And in 2012, the visionary from Bingen was elevated to the status of Doctor of the Catholic Church on the basis of her extensive work—the fourth woman worldwide in 2000 years.”
Bingen Museum am Strom
As we were passing through vineyards in this land of Riesling, we drove by the community of nuns that she founded and that continues her work today.
Abbey of St. Hildegard in Rudesheim, set appropriately amidst the vineyards
Understanding that the identity and our understanding of Hildegard—like the sacred places we visited throughout this trip—is still “strongly overlaid by the ideas, myths and legends of past centuries,” it seems appropriate to end this meditation with the music of a prophetess who has fascinated millions for more than 800 years.
More to come . . .
DJB
Nighttime image of Cologne Cathedral by Nikolay Kovalenko on Unsplash. All other photos by DJB unless otherwise credited.
Our best historians “attempt to recognize and grapple with the humanity and, thus, the fallibility of people in the past—and the present.” As one of those historian notes, “That is the stuff of history, too.”
On Juneteenth (2021) by Annette Gordon-Reed is a work of both history and memoir that explores the long road to the actual events toward emancipation on a June day in 1865 and then forward to the recognition of that date as a national holiday in the 21st century. Juneteenth remembers and celebrates June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state: Emancipation Day. Gordon-Reed, best known for her deep and earth-moving scholarship on the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemmings relationship, looks at a more personal subject here. A native of Texas, she examines her own life and mixes it with historical events from the state, nation, and world to shape a more truthful narrative around emancipation. By taking the long view, Gordon-Reed helps the reader see, as one reviewer notes, “that historical understanding is a process, not an end point.”
The past doesn’t disappear just because it isn’t recognized. Some of us carry it forward even when governments and other groups are intent on forgetting.
“History is always being revised,” writes Gordon-Reed, “as new information comes to light and when different people see known documents and have their own responses to them, shaped by their individual experiences.” Still, she notes, humans seem to need myths and legends as well as history, in part because they are an easy way to knit groups of people into a community.
This slender volume challenges the “Alamo” and “Western” myths surrounding Texas. Gordon-Reed takes us back to the earliest presence of Black people in the state to show how we have erased history for centuries in order to control the current narrative. Our nationalist-oriented history has us seeing what was happening “almost entirely from the perspective of English-speaking (and White) people.” As noted in the book publisher’s description, her reworking of the traditional “Alamo” framework “powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself.”
Juneteenth was celebrated in Texas long before it became a national holiday, and the latter initially irked Gordon-Reed. She describes how Texas is special in the minds of its natives, yes, but also in fact (if not exactly in ways that are commonly understood). The state is big geographically but it also has an outsized presence in the nation’s history.
“No other state brings together so many disparate and defining characteristics all in one—a state that shares a border with a foreign nation, a state with a long history of disputes between Europeans and an Indigenous population and between Anglo-Europeans and people of Spanish origin, a state that had existed as an independent nation, that had plantation-based slavery and legalized Jim Crow.”
Gordon-Reed writes eloquently about origin stories in this work which serves as something of a personal memoir. She remembers segregated waiting rooms and attending a “whites only” school before integration was legally mandated. She recognized that white friends treated her differently in different situations, as they struggled to maintain the racial caste system that was so important to the culture of the time. And she looks at the various American origin stories—from Plymouth to Jamestown and then into Spanish Florida and Mexico, which had slaves and battles with Indigenous peoples long before the Anglo-American versions that are such a part of our popular history. Origin stories matter to her, “even if they often have more to say about ‘our current needs and desires’ than with the facts of history.”
She ends the introduction by writing that her work on Juneteenth reveals:
“. . . that behind all the broad stereotypes about Texas is a story of Indians, settler colonists, Hispanic culture in North America, slavery, race, and immigration. It is an American story, told from this most American place.”
Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth is a short but important work on the endlessly complicated American story, which we do well to consider on this day and every day.
Photo: Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900 held in “East Woods” on East 24th Street in Austin. Credit: Austin History Center via the National Museum of African American History.
On a recent journey through Europe I was honored to be a lecturer alongside the esteemed historian Jeremy Black, MBE, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University. In addition to being the author of more than 100 books on history, Jeremy is also a fan—and reviewer—of murder mysteries. After a week together on a river cruise we had both finished the mysteries we brought with us, so Jeremy proposed a swap.
Which is how I was introduced to old Edinburgh and the Raven and Fisher series.
Scott Monument (credit: Wikimedia)
The Death of Shame (2025) by Ambrose Parry is the most recent installment of the Raven and Fisher mystery series. Set in 1854 Edinburgh, a prologue has the reader at the top of the Scott Monument, where we see one character’s dramatic response to public humiliation and shame. After some scene setting we then move into the heart of the work. In a world with strict moral codes and very restrictive societal roles for women, Sarah Fisher—a young widow left with financial resources after the death of her husband—is helping fund Dr. Will Raven’s emerging medical practice in exchange for being secretly trained as a doctor. As the story progresses, Will and Sarah are drawn into an ever more confusing and dangerous web of treachery, blackmail, secrets, and murder among the city’s more sordid residents.
The mystery begins when one of Raven’s first patients does not require medical attention. Will is summoned to the foot of the Scott Monument by Inspector McLevy to identify the body of a well-respected Edinburgh businessman whose death will cause waves. The dead man also happens to be Raven’s father-in-law. Fisher, meanwhile, is being asked to help locate a missing young lady, Annabel Banks, who came to the city at 15 years of age with a job lined up through an agency but has not been heard of in the month since she left home. Annabel, it turns out, is a niece Sarah has not seen in years. She gets no help from McLevy and the police, but Sarah is dogged in her search and finds support from Raven. Together they begin to uncover a horrific trade in young girls that Annabel may have been lured into.
If you haven’t discerned by now, the relationship between Will and Sarah is clearly important to the story. Their concern and care for each other is obvious and they should clearly be together. However, there are many reasons why this isn’t possible, not the least of which is that Will is married and has two children. That subplot is a key element of this new book, as Will balances his deep feelings for Sarah with his love for his family.
Will’s wife Eugenie has difficulty returning those feelings, however. After the grief following her father’s death and her growing distance from Will and her family following the difficult birth of a second child, Eugenie moves with her children back into her father’s home with its retinue of servants on fashionable St. Andrew’s Square.* Will remains in the smaller building in the New Town, with his office and an apartment for his growing family above. Sarah lives in the home of their former employer, the brilliant Dr. James Simpson and his family in Queen Street, working both there and with Raven.
In the midst of Raven’s concern about his wife’s increasing alienation and his work to discover the truth behind his father-in-law’s suicide, the reader sees the mutual respect and collaboration between the two lead characters. Will helps Sarah to achieve her medical aspirations and she takes on leading parts of their investigations. Both characters are well drawn, sympathetic, and willing to go to great lengths to uncover the city’s dark secrets.
Those secrets revolve around the fact that morality in Victorian Edinburgh was a weapon used to control women. A hint of being “impure” would spell ruin. The shame in the title leads to blackmail. Men are also not immune from coercion, as many so-called outstanding citizens had secrets and desires that they were desperate to keep out of the public eye.
Late in the story Sarah confronts her personal feelings on shame and virtue. In the process she finds that she can understand why a man would choose to leap from the Scott Monument. However, she also discovers “that she is not willing to be controlled by men wielding shame.”
With this revelation, Sarah uncovers the way to break the bonds held over this cast of characters by unscrupulous and vicious men and women, leading to a successful conclusion to the case. In the process, we learn more about Will, Eugenie, and Sarah. Eugenie shows a feminist side that is apparently new to the series, and her decisions at the end of the story have life-changing consequences for Raven and Fisher.
Ambrose Parry is the penname for Chris Brookmyre, an internationally bestselling and multi-award-winning author, and his wife, Dr. Marisa Haetzman, a consultant anesthetist of twenty years’ experience. The couple teamed up to write a series of historical crime thrillers, having extensively researched not only the places and social issues of the period but also the key figures and medical treatments. Many of the events in The Death of Shame are based on true historical characters and events, some first uncovered through Dr. Haetzman’s masters degree in the History of Medicine.
If you are new to the series, it is probably best to begin with the first book. However, I found that Brookmyre and Haetzman included enough backstory to bring new readers up-to-date with the lives of the main characters. And readers of historical fiction will be pleased to know that the blending of realities uncovered by the research with fictional storylines is handled with assurance and skill.
Even though I am generally not a fan of historical fiction, I found The Death of Shame a very satisfying read. I suspect that I’ll return to Victorian Edinburgh along with Dr. Will Raven and Sarah Fisher in the months ahead.
Historic homes on St. Andrew’s Square in Edinburgh, from my 2022 visit
The authors even include two snippets about Lord Melville’s role in blocking the abolition of the slave trade, which I have both written and lectured about in recent years.
Monument for Lord Melville in St. Andrew’s SquareNew plaque outlining Lord Melville’s role in blocking abolition of the slave trade
On the third day of our Great Journey Through Europe with National Trust Tours we did what millions of tourists have done for years—visited the lovely Central Switzerland city of Lucerne. With the majestic Alps as backdrop for Lake Lucerne, the city is a photographer’s delight.
More than most communities, Lucerne tells its history and celebrates the present through art. Painted murals on buildings in the Old Town, pictorial panels on Europe’s oldest covered bridge, whimsical fountains, magnificent churches, and store signs all join together with an arresting landscape to tell Lucerne’s story in a most delightful way.
Our day began early at the “Lion of Lucerne” before the crowds arrived. Unveiled in 1821, the dying lion of Lucerne was sculpted from the rock of the cliff and commemorates the Swiss guardsmen who died in 1792 during the French Revolution. It is a moving tribute, a beautiful work of art, and part of the nation’s story.
Lion of Lucerne (credit: Switzerland Tourism)
We then walked through the local market to arrive at another city landmark: the Chapel Bridge and Water Tower.
Lucerne is well-known for its wooden bridges. The Chapel Bridge, built in 1332 as part of the city’s original fortifications, connects the New Town to the medieval Old Town, bending along the way as it passes the water tower.
Pictorial panels were incorporated into the bridge in the 17th century, showcasing scenes of local and national history as well as the biographies of the city’s patron saints, St. Leodegar and St. Maurice. The bridge and panels were burned in a catastrophic fire in 1993, but all of the structure and many of the panels have since been restored.
Panels depicting Swiss historyBurned panel awaiting restorationRestoration work in progress (credit: Ann Telnaes)
Historic water tower
Lucerne is defined and designed by water. The River Reuss flows swiftly through the city where it is crossed not only by the fourteenth-century Chapel Bridge (or Kapellbrücke) but also by the fifteenth-century Spreuerbrücke.
The “new bridge”—the 15th century Spreuerbrücke
The river is fed by Lake Lucerne, also known as Vierwaldstättersee or Lake of the Four Forest Cantons (the Swiss term for states). Small villages dot the shoreline and the Alps make for a breathtaking backdrop.
The story of the city is also shown on the faces of many of the historic buildings. Murals tell of the city’s millers and brewers, showcase the various guilds that were once prominent in the region, speak to the pursuit of hunting, highlight biblical stories, and display the city’s rich Carnival (Mardi Gras) history which dates back several hundred years.
Eduard Renggli’s 1928 painting of the biblical feast of Canaan
Scenes of work and justice on an old guild hall that now serves as a hotel
A quote at the top of the facade of the Müllersche Apotheke reads “Amor medicabi lis nullis herbis” (There is no herb that will cure lovesickness).
A delightful celebration of Carnival
Finally, Lucerne is filled with gates and fountains . . .
. . .churches, alleyways, and broad vistas . . .
. . . and so much more that adds to the charm of this vibrant city.
When dealing with moral cynicism and the uneven terrain of life, we often hope for a manual that will tell us how to respond or a map that points toward the path which leads forward. But the manuals and maps of our modern world too often prioritize transactions over reciprocal relationships, individual success over community wellbeing, and linear thought as opposed to whole systems planning, where everything is connected and every action has consequences.
The Lakota professional who made these observations in a recent LinkedIn post noted that in place of a manual for climbing the corporate ladder, he was using his indigenous knowledge as a compass.
A writer whose worldview, knowledge, and wisdom has long served as a compass for me has just released a new work of essays “in praise of the indirect, the unpredictable, the immeasurable, the slow, and the subtle.” Action, she notes, is shaped by vision—the frameworks through which we understand the world. In this important new work, she provides a compass for our times.
No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain (2025) by Rebecca Solnit is a celebration of indirection. Focused on history, power, change, and possibility, Solnit writes in beautiful prose poetry to inspire hope in dark times. She builds this work on two terms she suggests we all adopt: One is “longsighted,” which she writes is “the capacity to see patterns unfold over time.” The other, as alternative to “inevitable,” is the rarely used adjective “evitable.” As she notes in the introduction, the “misremembering of the past (or not remembering the past at all) ill equips us to face the future.” In a series of essays grouped into sections on Visions, Revisions, and More Visions, Solnit uses her formidable storytelling skills to seek out examples of slowness, patience, endurance, and long-term vision. “I’ve come to recognize,” she writes, “that changing the story, dismantling the stories that trap us, finding stories adequate to our realities, are foundational to finding our powers and possibilities.”
Solnit begins with a meditation on an antique violin as a symbol of sustainability and the connectivity of everything. It is a reminder that the past tells many stories and always points to one story—that change is constant. For the better. For the worst. In the essays that follow she writes that radical ideas move from the fringes to the mainstream, a journey we can see if we take the time to follow the crooked path. “The present only looks incomprehensible to those who ignore the past.”
Calling on her readers to let go of certainty in how things will unfold, Solnit writes that destiny hangs on a thread and turns on a dime.
“Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was not scripted; it came about because Mahalia Jackson called out to him as he was partway through a more pedestrian, scripted speech, ‘Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!’, and he pushed the paper aside and shifted into the more prophetic voice of that greatest of American speeches. It almost didn’t happen—she was bold enough to call out in a historic moment; he could’ve ignored her, but somehow he dared to listen and was nimble enough to improvise in front of that vast crowd in the nation’s capital.”
Her chapter “In Praise of the Meander” builds on Solnit’s love of labyrinths, where to get to the center “you turn away from it again and again as you follow the windings that will, in the end, take you to the center.” That leads her to note that there are subjects better understood “through analogy, context, parallels, the view from the distance, rather than via direct and dogged pursuit.”
I have marked this book with underlining and marginal notes to the point that it looks as if there are fewer words without highlights than those that I’ve called out for remembrance. Because you’ll see these again and again in my writings, I want to highlight just a few, to provide a context for why I love this book and this writer.
“I’ve cherished unpredictability as the other face of possibility—if you already know what’s going to happen, there’s nothing more or nothing else possible, a view that often leads to disengagement and passivity.”
“To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up.”
“There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyranny, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.”
“We are always in one way or another in the middle of the story.”
“Categories too often become where thought goes to die.”
“Memory produces hope in the same way that amnesia produces despair.”
“We are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced. I believe that we are in an imagination battle.”
“What if we imagined wealth as consisting of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to clean air and water, to good food produced without abuse of labor or nature?”
And one of my favorites:
“The past equips us to face the future; continuity of memory tells us we are both descendants and ancestors.”
Both descendants and ancestors. What a critical reminder of our place in the world and the interconnectivity of everything.
We can make a better world, Solnit asserts, but it takes participation, defense, and expansion. And belief. But the changes are only possible “with intangible changes in our sense of what we means, what we care about most, who we think we can be, what we believe is possible.”
Two key thoughts run through the whole of this stirring work: the importance of hope, and the power of storytelling. And she ends with the following in a Credo written at 11 p.m. on November 5, 2024:
“There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good . . . Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”
Rachel Carson wrote that in exploring nature with a child, adults “become receptive” to what lies all around them. “It is learning again to use your eyes, ears, nostrils and finger tips, opening up the disused channels of sensory impression.”
A child’s world is fresh and new, yet we often lose that clear-eyed instinct about what is beautiful and awe-inspiring before we reach adulthood. Many don’t attempt to know.
The spectacle planned in Washington this weekend has been concocted by those who have lost that instinct. They want to redirect our gaze away from the beautiful, the lovely, the inclusive and towards a cult of personality. Terms such as shock and awe are used, yet these are small individuals who do not understand wonder and reverence. They seek to misplace joy with terror. They want us to be afraid, and to forget about things in life that bring a true sense of gratitude.
Awe—of things extraordinary and ordinary—is the feeling we get when we’re in the presence of something vast that transcends our current understanding of the world. Goosebumps, tears, and chillsare all emotional responses to things greater than ourselves. We respond emotionally in the moment, but then we begin an intellectual searching.
On a recent trip to the Swiss Alps and the World Heritage Site of Jungfrau-Aletsch I was reminded of my good fortune late in life to see magnificent and elemental things. Places that bring awe, in the best sense of the word. Places like the fjords of Norway. The glaciers of Alaska. The Alpine mountains and valleys of Switzerland. I’ve also encountered awe in the ordinary that’s all around us.
As it takes us beyond our normal ways of thinking, awe moves, empowers, stretches, and can transform.
Norwegian fjords
As we were coming out of pandemic lockdown in 2022, I traveled for the first time in my life to the fjords of Norway, where the majesty of the snow-capped mountains and the immense waterfalls put an important perspective on the time we had just come through and our place in the world.
Sailing through a Norwegian fjord
Thanks to the Flam railway, we came close to rushing waters cascading down the mountains after the spring melt. Chills were definitely a part of the experience.
Alaskan glaciers and the tall one
The next year we were sailing in Alaska, where we were so close we could hear the boom at the calving when huge pieces of the Dawes Glacier broke off and fell into the water. That was awe-inspiring.
Dawes Glacier in Alaska, calving as pieces of ice break off into the water
Later on that same trip, we spent two days viewing what the natives called “the big one” — Mount Denali. Nine different Native groups have used unique oral place names for the mountain, words that translate as “the tall one” and “mountain-big.” In 1794 George Vancouver referred to the “stupendous snow mountains” while Russian explorers had several names for the peak, including “great mountain” and “Big One.” Its name is Denali. And no, William McKinley had nothing to do with this special place.
Mount Denali, Alaska
Traveling to the top of Europe
On June 1st we began our Great Journey Through Europe tour in the Swiss Alpine village of Engelberg, where nature’s grandeur was already in evidence when we arrived.
The next morning we traveled to the gorgeous alpine valley of Lauterbrunnen for our transfer up to the mountain heights.
Lauterbrunnen Valley
Waterfalls in the Lauterbrunnen Valley
Village of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Next we took a cogwheel train ride up to Kleine Scheidegg, a mountain pass known for its stunning, unparalleled views of the Eiger, Jungrau, and Monch peaks, which make up the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage Site (credit: UNESCO)
Cogwheel trainView of the Alps
View from the cogwheel train
When we reached the pass we had views of the Alps that literally took your breath away. The rain stayed away until we began our descent in a cable car to the village of Grindelwald.
There is an observatory that is known as “The Top of Europe.” It was visible to us from the pass, even on a cloudy day.
Observatory at the Top of Europe (Credit: UNESCO)
Cable car descent to Grindelwald
We returned to our rooms in Engelberg exhilarated by all we’d experienced. Engelberg means “Mountain of Angels” and it reflects the history of an early 12th century Benedictine monastery, which remains active today.
One final bit of inspiration from our trip to the Alps came as Candice and I slipped in on our last evening in town to hear the monks sing Vespers at this beautiful Abbey. The monks in the video below were a bit more musical (to be polite) than those at the Engelberg Abbey, but it nonetheless made for a moving experience.
But not all beauty has to be of the snow-capped mountain peak variety. On our first day home we drove to a favorite place for dinner and saw a neighbor’s yard filled with glorious day lilies. Yet another connection with beauty, the ordinary, the extraordinary, and awe.
Living a life open to awe helps us understand that we are part of systems larger than ourselves. It is about “knowing, sensing, seeing, and understanding fundamental truths.” It is a recognition that there is much we cannot know in this life. It is an embrace of mystery, and the fascinating journey we share with others in this time and in this place.
I have a monthly intention to read a minimum of five books on a variety of topics from different genres. Here are the books I read in May 2025. If you click on the title, you’ll go to the longer post on MORE TO COME. Enjoy.
James: A Novel (2024) by Percival Everett is a brilliant reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved sidekick Jim. The first part of the book follows Twain’s general outline, but when Huck and Jim are separated Everett takes James down different paths. A masterful writer, Everett works through tales and scenes that move between gripping terror and laugh-out-loud humor, all while putting forth observations from his protagonist that cut to the bone. James is depicted with intelligence, compassion, and agency in a way seldom seen in American literature about slavery. James was just awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Everett has said, “I hope that I have written the novel that Twain did not and also could not have written. I do not view the work as a corrective, but rather I see myself in conversation with Twain.” Do yourself a favor. Read this book.
A Better Man (2019) by Louise Penny is the fifteenth work in the Canadian author’s long-running Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. The former superintendent of the entire Sûreté du Québec, Gamache has returned after a controversial suspension and demotion and immediately faces devastating spring floods, relentless social media attacks, and a law enforcement force that appears split on the question of whether he should have even been allowed to return. Gamache is now sharing the position as head of the homicide department with his former second-in-command—and his son-in-law—Jean-Guy Beauvoir who is preparing to leave the force and move with his family to Paris. As if these challenges aren’t enough, Gamache is approached by a desperate father seeking help in finding his missing daughter. In the fast paced and multi-layered story, the Chief Inspector and many others are struggling to find their footing.
Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture (2025) by David Serlin is an academic work that seeks to reassess modern architecture and urban culture when it comes to addressing the needs of people with disabilities. Serlin’s work draws upon fields as diverse as architectural history, disability studies, media archaeology, sensory studies, urban anthropology, and feminist science studies and as such can too often take the reader on a dense and winding path. Nonetheless, there is plenty here to capture the reader interested in the topic, either from the perspective of well-known historical figures such as Joseph Merrick (aka the “Elephant Man”) in London and Helen Keller in New York and Paris, or for those who want to study institutions and buildings that had outsized influence in this space. Serlin has us consider “a series of influential moments when architects and designers engaged the embodied experiences of people with disabilities.”
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience (2024) by Lyndsey Stonebridge is the book we need for these times. A compelling biography but also a primer for how to think if we want to be free. Arendt was not perfect and not always the easiest person to understand but she thought and cared deeply about humanity. Thanks to Stonebridge’s very accessible and thoughtful writing, readers are brought into Arendt’s world to see why she came to think the way she did. In doing so, Stonebridge takes us from fascist Germany to twenty-first century America. Arendt’s life and work is in a dialogue with today’s turbulent times in this masterful biography.
Stoner(1965 and reprinted in several editions) by John Williams has been described as a novel in which nothing happens and everything happens. William Stoner is raised on a hardscrabble farm and that life seems his destiny. Then his father suggests he go to the University of Missouri to study agriculture. Surprisingly, he finds he has to take a class on English literature and in the experience embraces a scholar’s life. A mentor points out the obvious to him: that he will be a teacher because he has “fallen in love. It’s as simple as that.” And yet as the years pass in this career he loves, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: from an unfulfilling marriage to academic infighting, from the loss of the affection of his daughter to new love that threatens to embroil him in scandal. His last few years are spent embracing the silence and solitude of his forebearers. There is a universality to William Stoner that can be both comforting and very sad at the same time. Stoner has been described as “the greatest American novel you’ve never read.” It is certainly worth your time.
What’s on the nightstand for June (subject to change at the whims of the reader)
The ultimate success of some books cannot be explained. There are many overnight sensations that are forgotten by the following year. Rarely, however, do we find a book that was written more than 50 years earlier that has gone out of print and then inexplicitly becomes an international bestseller. Especially when the book is about the academic life and one man’s journey from the farmland to the academy.
Stoner (1965 and reprinted in several editions) by John Williams has been described as a novel in which nothing happens and everything happens. William Stoner is raised on a hardscrabble farm and that life seems his destiny. Then his father suggests he go to the University of Missouri to study agriculture. Surprisingly, he finds he has to take a class on English literature and in the experience embraces a scholar’s life. A mentor points out the obvious to him: that he will be a teacher because he has “fallen in love. It’s as simple as that.” And yet as the years pass in this career he loves, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: from an unfulfilling marriage to academic infighting, from the loss of the affection of his daughter to new love that threatens to embroil him in scandal. His last few years are spent embracing the silence and solitude of his forebearers.
Through it all Williams writes with a clarity and style that is a joy to read. One page leads to the next and then the next and suddenly this book about a midwestern academic of the mid-20th century has captured your mind and soul. By the final pages Stoner may never leave you.
Williams has a religious reverence for education and literature, and it shows in the care in which he constructs this tale of the academic’s life. Some have called this a quiet novel, and that’s an apt description. Even in the well-written passages when Stoner falls in love with a fellow professor, the passion and chemistry are crafted with care and love.
There is a universality to William Stoner that can be both comforting and very sad at the same time. The person who recommended it to me (the owner of my barber shop, no less) said he was sobbing at the end of the book. I had a similar, though not quite so dramatic, reaction. I didn’t weep, but I did connect.
Stoner has been described as “the greatest American novel you’ve never read.” It is certainly worth your time.
Before wheelchair ramps, curb cuts, and other such accommodations became standard practice, how did people with disabilities interact with the built environment? Rather than being precluded from participating in modern culture, a new book makes the case that the subjective experiences of people with disabilities were at the generative center of modern architecture.
Window Shopping with Helen Keller: Architecture and Disability in Modern Culture (2025) by David Serlin is an academic work from the University of Chicago Press that seeks to reassess modern architecture and urban culture when it comes to addressing the needs of people with disabilities. Serlin’s work draws upon fields as diverse as architectural history, disability studies, media archaeology, sensory studies, urban anthropology, and feminist science studies and as such can too often take the reader on a dense and winding path. Nonetheless, there is plenty here to capture the reader interested in the topic, either from the perspective of well-known historical figures such as Joseph Merrick (aka the “Elephant Man”) in London and Helen Keller in New York and Paris, or for those who want to study institutions and buildings that had outsized influence, such as the WPA and Stanley Tigerman’s Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Serlin has us consider “a series of influential moments when architects and designers engaged the embodied experiences of people with disabilities.”
In a lengthy introduction followed by four chapters, Serlin argues that there is empirical and representational evidence of “an adjacent universe” in which architects and designers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries “took a keen interest in the embodied experiences of people with disabilities.” Merrick and Keller’s experiences make up the first two chapters. In the third case study Serlin suggests that the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration provided little-known but important services for people with disabilities, both as an employer and as producer of services. The WPA’s capacity to “think about disability as a potentially generative economic, social, and educational opportunity was the last gasp” of a democratic pluralism that evaporated by the beginning of the Cold War.
“As the New Deal institution responsible for so much of the modern built environment, other scholars have pegged the WPA as deeply under the sway of eugenics, incorporating little accommodation for the elderly, infirm, or disabled, but Serlin surfaces evidence that in fact it contained fairly advanced thinking on disability (he especially focuses on architectural and design projects meant to accommodate children suffering from polio-induced paralysis), and that it was Cold War–era design that actually swept away disability-accommodating features.”
In the book’s final chapter Serlin is considering Tigerman’s design of the Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. He suggests that the architect thought about the disabled as a user—not what their disabilities prevented them from doing but what they made possible.
A point from his introduction is instructive.
“If one measures successful architecture only by the intentions of the designer and not by the experiences of the user, then one is willfully and brazenly ignoring what a user’s perspective can lend not only to the utility of the design but also to its meaning.”
I strongly agree.
Serlin’s book can be difficult to digest, theory heavy, and not for the casual reader. But it is an intriguing work and there is much of value to consider here.
More to come . . .
DJB
Image of Sargent Claude Johnson WPA-commissioned proscenium (1937) for the California School for the Blind in Berkeley (credit: Huntington Museum)
MORE TO COME... 