“The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus was about seven miles long—a two- to three-hour walk. It is a long walk when your loved one has died, or you’ve lost your job, or a relationship has been…

“Our university town, Gainesville, is a mirror of the polarization sweeping the nation. The intellectuals look down on the rednecks (until their cars break down) and the rednecks want nothing to do with…

“With our windows open out onto West 52nd street, these days all we hear is the wailing and yelling of the mentally insane street people, wandering aimlessly, some begging the locals, already at…

“In other words, none of us has long. I have enjoyed an enormously privileged life, in no small part because I chose my parents wisely. I have lived a long time, relative to…

“How could this precarious situation come to pass? That instead of climate change we humans might instead be finished off a bit sooner by a simple attack of a highly infectious disease we…

“Having learned from the studies of stressed humans in isolation, NASA has built cupolas into the International Space Station. When tensions mount, astronauts are advised to seek refuge in these snug, windowed spaces…

“I’m not sure who is worse off, leadership-wise, we in UK or our friends in the USA. While your vile nincompoop is in full flow, advising people to inject themselves with detergent, ours…

“I am writing this letter from the terrace of our tiny but lovely courtyard, with my back to our tiny but lovely 19th-century workman’s house in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Ghent.…

“Fast forward to Weird Easter 2020. I live next to a church in Athens whose Easter program has always been the usual elaborate Friday beeswax-candlelight procession with the bell tolling and the heavily overdressed…

“A dear friend of mine, a Southern woman long expatriated to England, sent me the following letter, and I would like to share it, anonymously, with a larger readership . . . for…