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The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 has been awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Yunus and the Grameen (literally "rural") Bank started the microcredit movement thirty-two years ago in Bangladesh. Microcredit is the practice of lending small amounts to women to begin businesses to support their families. According to the Associated Press, Grameen Bank's loans average just $200. Ninety-seven percent of the recipients are women. The repayment rate is ninety-nine percent. Since its inception, the bank has lent…

The Thanksgiving Day service was almost over. The singing had been inspiring, the sermon right on point, the prayers plain and heartfelt. Then the Congressman mounted the pulpit. "A Proclamation by the President of the United States," he announced. I listened until my count of the half-truths and hypocrisies in the script reached five, then tuned out to save the spirit of the day. That particular harbor was not to be found this day, however. Arriving home I clicked on…

In the closing months of 2006, news dispatches from Iraq have grown more discouraging by the week. Casualties continue to mount, both among the military forces of the United States and its allies and in the civilian population. Suicide bombings in crowded markets and near police recruiting stations have become routine. To these are now added the horrors of daily executions of Shiite partisans by Sunni militias and vice versa. The goal announced at the war's outset nearly four years…

Ma knew that I often walked with friends from Ryerson on Sundays. But after I had been gone on a particularly snowy day for over two hours she quizzed me rather pointedly. As I came through the back door, red-cheeked and rubbing my cold hands together, she said, "Where on earth could you have been walking? It's a blizzard out there!" "We stopped at Rachel's house," I answered nonchalantly. "Rachel? Rachel who? And who else?" "Rachel Cadiz. I've mentioned her…

This is a book born out of affliction. Wendy Farley, who teaches theology at Emory University, wrote it in the wake of domestic crisis and physical suffering that left her unable to read for eighteen months. The result is theological writing "at variance with the customs of the academic world" (ix), drawing on the Christian theological texts that had embedded themselves in her memory, her years of Buddhist contemplative practice, and favorite folksongs. (Excerpts from the CD made to accompany…