Comments for Fenton Johnson

Comment on Taking Care by Ted

Ted — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:57:00 +0000

This is one of the most beautiful passages I’ve ever read.

My father died of lung cancer at a young 59 years of age; I was 21 (remembering that time, it’s amazing how younger we grow with each passing year). His decline was swift – from diagnosis to death in less than 2 years – so while I have some experience with caregiving/taking of a loved one, it was not prolonged. Yet even with that short experience, though I did not realize it until now, I can attest to the truth of what you eloquently describe: “Caretaking for someone who’s engaged, even if resisting, turns out to be both easier and more enjoyable than caretaking the functions of an otherwise inanimate body.”

Comment on Signs and Wondering by Responding Gate: Right Speech | Red Cedar Zen Center

Responding Gate: Right Speech | Red Cedar Zen Center — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:32:02 +0000

[...] http://www.fentonjohnson.com/site/2011/07/08/signs-and-wondering/ [...]

Comment on Signs and Wondering by Jaren Hoppe-Leonard

Jaren Hoppe-Leonard — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 23:10:02 +0000

Hi, I really enjoyed your post!

I’m almost certain that I was sitting immiedetly to your left during sesshin! It was an honor to sit with you!

Comment on Signs and Wondering by Elisabeth Harper

Elisabeth Harper — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:50:31 +0000

You put that so well – “whether my head has the courage to embrace the hard paths my heart has chosen.” Thank you for a new way of understanding some of my choices.

Comment on Signs and Wondering by Sue Luttner

Sue Luttner — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:46:01 +0000

Thank you for sharing this meditation and allowing me to feel, by reflection, part of the whole.

Comment on Love and Sex in the Time of AIDS by Todd

Todd — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:31:25 +0000

Thank you so much for this! This deeper conversation is largely absent in the world of HIV prevention, and yet it goes so far beyond merely preventing HIV. This is great material for group discussion. The paragraph beginning with “In matters of sexual contact” should become required reading for all of us. The terrain between sex and love seems expansive at times and non-existent at others. I feel you’ve provided me with some tools to think about this and talk through it and am very appreciative.

Comment on The Destiny of Us by Bill Coan

Bill Coan — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:14:23 +0000

What? No dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon? No shriven shrike? (Sorry, but this thing thrills. It is a joy to read, and now I want to play, too.)

OK, seriously: This thoughtful, large-spirited, thoroughly and Thoreau-ly entertaining piece of incantatory birdsong makes my heart dance. Gerard, Fenton. Fenton, Gerard.

Congratulations and thanks. And get thee to a microphone.

Comment on Lessons from the Quake: Giving Up Illusions by Fenton Johnson

Fenton Johnson — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 04:07:13 +0000

Thanks, Philip, for a comment that’s, um, smarter than I. Over the past weekend I heard Luis Urrea commenting on immigration. “We’ve got to figure out that there’s no ‘us’ and ‘them,’” he said. “There’s only ‘we.’” Amen, bro. Keep teaching. They’re not making it any easier for us.

Comment on Lessons from the Quake: Giving Up Illusions by Philip boo riley

Philip boo riley — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:33:20 +0000

Interesting to find amidst my morning review of the local paper (San Jose mercury news),references to something I discussed with my students just last week- voltaire’s parody of Leiniz’s theodicy. Perhaps intentionally, your use of “illusion” invokes freud’s argument about the future of civilization…but I’d propose ambition instead of illusion, to capture both the hubris of moderns (Leo Strauss on oblivion of eternity, overcoming chance, mastery of nature, etc.) but also the lesson you propose, that we are not isolated monads but instead or connected to one another, and ultimately, as you nicely capturenit in your final paragraph the very fabric of all that exists.

Comment on Violence in the Desert, Violence in Our Hearts by Phil Smith

Phil Smith — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:42:39 +0000

Tender, expansive, insightful, quotable. I too will share this piece with friends. Well done, Fenton.