by James Hanna Photos_frompasttofuture When I saw the ghost sitting on my living room couch, I blindly overreacted. My palms dampened, my breathing grew shallow, my skin crawled as though covered with ants. The ghost, a dark-haired woman in her thirties, did not really merit dramatics. Her stature was small, her skin was parlor pale, and her hair was drawn up in a neat unobtrusive bun. She was pretty, in her black hooped dress, but her sunless demeanor and lack of makeup sugg

by James Hanna Liana S Nietzsche said it well: “In individuals madness is rare, but in groups it is the rule.” But just what facilitates the madness of groups, their cow-like instinct to reject contemplation in favor of a collective cud? Is it the retractability of language, its potential to shrink all thought to the level of a verbal belch? If you cannot articulate, you cannot think — demagogues know this well. And so they appeal to the gut — not the mind. A couple of well-t

by James Hanna Ashim D'Silva Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in Sixfold. When cancer took Murray, I was such an ingrate. Weren’t my forty years of marriage to him enough? Weren’t the two daughters God gave us enough? He lived almost a year after Doctor Diver diagnosed his brain tumor — wasn’t that enough? Why must we set our hearts on things that must be limited? The Lord gives, the Lord takes — we should let it go at that. How I wish I could follow my own advic