Well, it would be hard to say that it was the best year ever, but it certainly comes close and other contenders are hard to think of. I spent over half the year in Bristol, for some time I worked on two Masters degrees simultaneously, I completed one (just found out that it was accepted and a degree is forthcoming), managed straight As in the other, saw Geshe Michael Roach and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, dated a lovely Spanish... Read more

(hint: start at the beginning) (completed on Dec 27th) I’ve been a lazy boy this past week, relaxing in Helena at my parents’ house. I did write a letter to the local paper’s editor about the ‘war on Christmas’ and how the holiday, which is shared with/borrowed from many other faiths should be about love and sharing with family, friends, and community and not about any one faith claiming monopoly on the season. I’ve also started some new ‘instant immerson’... Read more

(hint: start at the beginning) The Magic of ‘three’. Is there such a thing? If so, perhaps we could find ways of applying it in our lives (e.g. in relationships). To be honest I first thought of a three-fold understanding of relationships about two years ago, but it is only with this more recent framework of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that I have been able to articulate it in a way that is true to the good life. We can... Read more

There is something magical about the number ‘3’. We all know of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) of Catholicism and the Three Refuges (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) in Buddhism. But also in Philosophy this ‘3’ comes up in The True, the Good, and the Beautiful. What is it about ‘3’ that holds us all in its grasp? Why can’t we just have the Father, the Dharma, and Truth? Why can’t everything else just reduce down to those? Why does... Read more

This is from my personal journal, dated 9-20-05, just after seeing His Holiness the Dalai Lama September 18th and 19th in Tucson, Arizona. It was a momentous event, one which woke me from my spiritual slumber in academia. Though sometimes I’m not sure if I haven’t just turned over and gone back to sleep. And I laugh… Maybe I didn’t wake from anything at all! For a bit (or a lot) of context: I had just returned from England in... Read more

They say that post-9/11 we live in a different world, or that post-Katrina we live in a new America. What will they say about post-Hegel? For one, this marks the first semester in three years that I do not have an ‘incomplete’ grade looming over me. That means it’s the first time I’ve actually finished a semester within the semester, the first time that I don’t have unfinished work to do, with no definite deadline. The worst of it for... Read more

Hegel rocks. I just have to say that. But he takes a little (no, actually a lot of) digesting, so I figure I should sneak in a quick (ie. unstructured, rambling) post. First, (and this should make Tom happy) I got a job (or at least should soon)! I’ll be at the Center for Ethics at UM, which was my employer before I went to England, when it was the Practical Ethics Center. A couple pics (enjoying the sunshine between... Read more

My sister is an artist. My father was an accomplished watercolor painter in his youth. My mother creates intensely beautiful quilts. Anyone who has read my poetry or seen my paintings immediately suggests that I was adopted. The second great love of my life was (and is) an artist. Her art speaks of the need to reacknowledge the texture of life, a texture robbed from us in a life lived too hastily. Italian in heritage, she brings with her a... Read more

This month’s National Geographic explores Buddhism in the West. There is some beautiful Japanese flute music along with good pictures/video and an interview with the writer along with the article. It gives a good impression on why Buddhism is picking up here these days, and a tiny bit of what it is that goes on in meditation. The most interesting point for me is in the interview with Perry Garfinkel, the author, and he describes a ‘Zen moment’ when, in... Read more

God is once again seen to walk in the history of nations. As a century organized around the fear of a godless state comes to a close, we wake to a new terror; states armed with powers of the divine.— Roger Friedland, “When God Walks in History” Read more