Community Comment

Faith is a crutch. It helps those of us who need it to cope with a world that is dangerous, confusing, unfair, and often cruel. We desperately cling to the notion that within what often appears to be chaos and disorder there is purpose and meaning.

Unable to accept existence as the product of random forces that have dropped us on this speck in the universe, we ask why? Unwilling to ignore the madness and enthralled by the beauty, we ask how?  Read more

This country is fast becoming dysfunctional. Government doesn’t seem to work, we’re accumulating huge deficits, the financial system is a mess, and unemployment has exploded.

There was a time not too long ago when we believed we could overcome our problems. Somehow our leaders would come up with solutions that would assure our continued progress. Now other nations question our stability. Many doubt we have the will to address the many problems that confront us. Even supporters are losing confidence in the Obama Administration.  Read more

One in every five people in Boston’s minority communities is looking for work. In some areas, like the Blue Hill Avenue corridor, two in five are completely out of the workforce. And the city and state are in no position to help those people. They are dealing with their own budget crises.  Read more

I write this article on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and we have just had a wonderful service here to commemorate his life and ministry. I think we were all inspired by his vision which continues to challenge all of us to carry on the work of freedom and justice for all. For that work is not over and the struggle and suffering continue. It is also now nearly a week since the devastating earthquake struck Haiti and we are all filled with grief and concern over the suffering and loss of life brought on by this tragedy.  Read more

Mary Casey ForryThursday, January 1, 1987
Dear Diary:
What an exhilarating day! So much fun doing things for the first time in the new year.  Read more

Every fall in the early 1960s Massachusetts legislators were accustomed to being invited to our state’s great university in Amherst to see the campus, watch a football game, and otherwise be lobbied by the administrators there to see the benefits of public higher education and support the University of Massachusetts. My Dorchester neighbor and colleague, George Kenneally, and I would always ask our hosts about how many students were being served and how many came from where we lived. My family didn’t have money, and neither one of us had ever gone away to study at college.  Read more