A life in words

  • “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage”

    I found myself thinking about courage tonight, and found a quote that I liked a good deal: Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius I guess I related to it since I’ve gone through periods in life where just putting one foot in front of the other…

  • My Beautiful Mother

    Just after Mom died, her friend, Diann Macbeth, wrote a remembrance of her based on decades of church service together, which my family has treasured ever since. I now share it in full: Janet, My Friend Occasionally someone enters our life so softly and gently that at first we scarcely notice they are there. Like…

  • Mom’s Suicide

    On March 1st, 2003 my mother shot herself in the head, ending her life at the age of 46. Today marks twelve years since that day. For much of that time I rarely ever spoke of my mother’s suicide. One small indication of this: the first posts on this blog were less than a year…

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)