In 1617, a few years before English settlers landed, an epidemic began to spread through the area that became southern New England. It likely came from British fishermen, who had been fishing off the coast for decades. By 1620, ninety to ninety-six percent of the population had died. It decimated...

Every October and November in the United States, we find ourselves in a season of false and misleading stories about European settlers and Native Americans. First there’s the story that Columbus discovered America in 1492. Then there’s the story about the Pilgrims and the Indians at the first...

We gather at Thanksgiving, in some sense, to retell the creation myth of our country. In this myth is our very best and our very worst: a boldness; a care for the common good; a wish to say we before I. Yet from even before the first Thanksgiving feast, it’s a story of theft and violence, and a...

I heard the Second Brandenburg Concerto played in honor of Bach’s 300th birthday, and I was swept away. I remembered a story about the people who send messages into outer space. Someone suggested sending a piece by Bach. The reply was “But that would be bragging.” Some say we get what we...

I [do not] mean to present myself as some kind of bodhisattva of compassion. However, in my better moments—at least in my more conscious moments—while I’m eating, I do try to imagine the lives and even the deaths of the creatures who nourish me. I try to think of the freedom and exhilaration...