Welcome to my website. For a long time I resisted creating a site, because I believe that a writer’s task is to point away from him or herself toward the world in all its beauty and complexity.
But I have come to realize that you, my readers, are a special group. You care deeply about the children of the world, you believe that there are voices in the land that we must learn to respect, you believe in helping the weak and in caring for the less fortunate, and, above all else, you believe that there is a power of spirit that inhabits every stone and star. You are a rare breed, gentler in heart than the world around us, and I am happy to provide a place where you can meet and share thoughts with each other.
I also want to make this site a place where I can share the long, slow, unfolding of my own thoughts about life. Mostly, I will do this through my weblog, as well as excerpting passages from my books. Editors and booksellers despair of finding a common theme in my work, and end up filing my books in varied and disparate places in the stores. But there is a common theme, and it is the need to moralize the intellectual and physical landscape in which we live. You will find this purpose at the heart of every work I produce. The language may differ, the subjects and styles may move far afield from each other. But, at heart, every work of mine is a cry, whether joyful or anguished, for the enspiriting of every encounter with every person, every moment, no matter how humble and ordinary.
I have always believed that the real heroes in the world are the ordinary people, the kind people, the people who live unnoticed and serve others by their ordinary deeds. The single mother raising her child with love is more important to me than the diplomat or princess. The man who works each day trying to care for those around him is, to me, far greater than the man who wields power and influence over thousands.
This website is for those who share that belief — who know that, though the world is full of darkness, we must commit ourselves to leaning toward the light.
I hope you will take some time to wander around in this site, reading excerpts where they exist, following links where they are offered, and, most of all, considering the comments of the readers who write responses to my weblogs. The website may be based in my work, but the community of readers it creates includes us all.
These are confusing times. I keep hearing the echoes of Yeat’s phrase, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.” You, my readers, defy this characterization. You are among the best, and you are filled with passionate intensity. But it is often a passionate intensity quietly expressed, a valuing of the simple gesture over the grand act.
In the last analysis, everything comes down to the phrase of Chief Sitting Bull: “Come, let us put our minds together to see what kind of lives we can create for our children.” That’s what we’re all doing; that’s what everyone should be doing. It certainly is what this website endeavors to do. Thank you for being part of the effort.