Monkey Mind

On this day in 1954 the American Supreme Court overthrew the long standing "separate but equal" public education policy.Many consider this the beginning of the American civil rights movement. … [Read more...]

Danny Fisher posted this from Amnesty International:Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been detained for 13 of the last 19 years, mostly under house arrest. On May 14, 2009, Aung San Suu Kyi and two of her assistants were taken from her home to Insein Prison following an incident in which an American man allegedly swam across a lake to her house and stayed there for two days. Reliable reports beginning in early May confirm that while still confined in her Yangon home … [Read more...]

Emily Dickinson died on this day in 1886... … [Read more...]

In the latest of a litany of human rights abuses the dictatorship in Burma has taken the ailing Nobel Peace laureate and democratically elected leader of the nation Aung San Suu Kyi from her long time house arrest and imprisoned her at the notorious Insein Prison. In response to this latest outrage, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon issued a statement stating: "The Secretary-General is gravely concerned about the news that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to the Insein Prison to face criminal … [Read more...]

Yesterday afternoon I called the surgeon's office to inquirer about the status of the lymph node biopsy from auntie's mastectomy thirteen days ago. The person with whom I spoke said the biopsy was in but the doctor was not. I asked if Joan the nurse supreme was available & was told they would ask her to get back to me. But she didn't.Last night I awoke at two in the morning and didn't get back to sleep until somewhere in the neighborhood of three thirty. This is rare for me. I usually fall … [Read more...]

Today is Julian's feast in the Roman calendar. She was commemorated among Anglicans and Lutherans a couple of days ago... … [Read more...]

I came a tad late to the Star Trek thing. I missed pretty much the whole first season, and this was the sixties, and my young adulthood, after all, so I wasn't sitting watching lots of television. First there were drugs. Then Zen...But I liked what I saw. According to Wikipedia, Gene Roddenberry pitched it as "wagon train to the stars" while telling his close associates it really would be Gulliver's Travels with two levels of storyline. While that meta story was occasionally, okay regularly, … [Read more...]

I have a minor bug (not swine flu, but maybe piglet flu) and that's leaving me a bit out of sorts as I crowd up with the colleagues.I passed on the sing along last night & I'm also giving a pass to the outside program today with a prominent UU musician. But I'm making all the regular clergy get together stuff, the business meetings, and what not.The bug probably contributes to my general level of grumpitude, but I swear the noise level at breakfast was above normal for a group of comparable … [Read more...]

I'm almost packed for the annual Ballou Channing District Unitarian Universalist Minister's retreat. It starts just ahead of lunch today and runs through lunch on Wednesday. We'll be gathering at an RC retreat facility in Wareham.Interestingly I've been at this facility for a Zen retreat a couple of years ago. (Not a good experience, actually. The priests understood Zen and were even enthusiastic about our coming. The staff thought we were a cult and were singularly unhelpful, to the point of … [Read more...]

Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on this day in 1897. (correction, Krishnamurti was born on the 12th of May, 1897. I jumped a day...)In his childhood he was identified by prominent Theosophists as the next world teacher. By which they meant the next Christ or Buddha.They proclaimed when he came into his adulthood he would speak truths that would be hard to hear. They were right. Pretty much as soon as he grew up he repudiated the titles as well as the Theosophical Society.Krishnamurti would spend the … [Read more...]