a great loss...

I just heard that Reverend William Sloane Coffin died yesterday at 81. I told my mom because she was the one who introduced me to his very special soul, with equal parts of brilliance, erudition, compassion and righteousness. Rev. Coffin is a huge influence on me, and a large reason that I continue to learn from the mainline Christian tradition as well as my Jewish one, and a great source for inspirational quotes (and humorous ones). I'll never forget hearing him speak in Chautauqua just months after his stroke, and his introductory joke that his voice was, as Mark Twain said of Wagner's music, "better than it sounds." Ha!

Others include: Despair is not an option...despair rationalizes. Hope organizes.

"Joy in this world comes from self-fulfillment. Joy is a more profound experience than mere happiness. When you feel a sense of undeserved integrity because you think you're in the right fight - against segregation, against the war in Vietnam, against the stupid and cruel discrimination against gays and lesbians - these are the right fights, I feel very deeply. And the sense of self-fulfillment which comes from being in the right fight is a wonderful thing."

Amen. My prayer, especially on Passover, for myself and everyone, is that we should have that joy and self-fulfillment in our own lives. All the more reason to keep fighting the good fights.