By WILLIAM PRENTISS Prior to being in a suspended state due to a brutal attack, I thought I possessed a highly developed, acute conscience. Now I lie here, day after day, frozen, conscience growing richer—more aware—possessing tenderness not evidenced prior to my unexpected change in circumstances. I cannot communicate with others, only God, and still I […]
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Eight
November 6, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS “Real religion cannot be opposed to intellect.” — Leo Tolstoy A perennial question plaguing thinkers, believers and thinking believers concerns the relationship of faith, reason and intellect. Does faith in the unseen require blind trust, or can it be predicated on things understood in the natural? Are faith, reason, and science mutually […]
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Seven
October 22, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS I lie here only able to hear, and that unknown to others, thinking about empathy and compassion, wondering about the root of both. What compels us to feel the plight of others, to desire to alleviate their suffering? What is the source of empathy and compassion?
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Six
October 16, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS Hours on end, thinking yet not seeing, hearing but not feeling, feeling but never expressing, this is my wakened state, unknown to none but me, and God of course, and maybe my sister. Sis read again from Tolstoy. She assumes I can hear but she doesn’t know for sure. Her extraordinary faith keeps […]
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Five
October 10, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS My mind is a merciless jailor, more so than my motionless frame. I haven’t moved a leg, limb or eyelash for two years; my thoughts hold more of me hostage than does my inert body.
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Four: Pilgrims
September 23, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS I had already begun contemplating death prior to my present state. When younger, healthy and virtually free of scars and the tissue that remains, death was something far into an unknown, never-to-be-reached future. Death was an occasional thought, sadly affecting others. At some point in my early forties, after life had begun its […]
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Three
September 12, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS Clarksdale, Mississippi Rough day. I feel no physical pain, but I still deal with and feel mental anguish. This angst is usually a result of painful memories or frustration with being able to do nothing but “be.”
Mornings with Tolstoy – Day Two
September 5, 2014 1 Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS Clarksdale, Mississippi I don’t always understand or agree with what Sis reads to me from Leo Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom, but it sure does make me think. Thinking is about all I can do. I am in a coma: I can’t see, move, blink, or feel pain, nothing. But I can hear, and pray.
Mornings with Tolstoy – The Beginning
August 29, 2014 Leave a Comment
By WILLIAM PRENTISS Clarksdale, Mississippi He is God. Why didn’t He protect me? I blamed Him. It wasn’t His fault. Life ain’t fair. That’s that. No more pleas for them to hear. They can’t. Two years, and only Sis hears. Well, she really doesn’t hear. I talk to God about it. Guess you would call […]
Recent Comments