The American poet Mary Oliver was born on this day in 1935. For those of us with some numerical difficulties, she is eighty-one years old. She was born in Maple Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. Oliver is said to have started writing poetry at fourteen. She went on to study at Ohio State and Vassar, but left without a degree. Her passion was writing. She was twenty-eight when her first collection of poems, No voyage and Other Poems was published... Read more

I was reading on Facebook a critique of the modernist Buddhist interpreter Stephen Batchelor’s objections to the doctrine of rebirth (and because they are tied up intimately within Buddhist thought, karma). It is a subject of considerable power among many of my friends. Okay, I think about it, as well. But, among the thickets of opinions on the subject a sub-thread emerged discussing materialism and scientism. Often those who are in support of the traditional Buddhist view of rebirth or... Read more

Sister Constance, born Caroline Louise Darling in Medway, Massachusetts in 1846, joined Mother Harriet Starr Cannon in the forming the Episcopal sisterhood of Augustinian nuns that we now call the Community of St Mary. She was sent as superior with several other sisters to found a community in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1878 a terrible yellow fever epidemic swept through the city. Many of those with resources fled. With a few notable exceptions who could have left but who remained to... Read more

Use it wisely… Read more

For many of my liturgically minded Christian friends, particularly Catholics of those various stripes I know and often love and a goodly number of Anglicans (ditto), today is marked as the Nativity of Mary. Mary, as many who visit this blog know, I call my favorite goddess. She is the most widely known of the Western incarnations of as the archetype of love, of compassion. And that love, that compassion is something this world so desperately needs. While she indeed... Read more

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: a Way of Life is a quite interesting film produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Mistral Film of France, and NKH of Japan. Fractionally over an hour and a half. And as a special bonus it is narrated by Leonard Cohen. When this film was made in 1994, Cohen was just beginning that serious immersion in the Dharma which would lead him on a path that would eventually have him ordain as... Read more

What can I say? Even the Dalai Lama likes this book! And, absolutely, so do I. Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life Care edited by Koshin Paley Ellison and Matt Weingast, and published by Wisdom Publications is a powerful addition to the literature on end of life care, both for those dying and those who accompany them. I would say most of all for those of us who are becoming aware of the complexities of aging,... Read more

I find it hard to believe. But, it was today in 2006 that I posted my first entry for Monkey Mind. I was serving as parish minister of the First Unitarian Society in Newton, and while preparing for a sabbatical, my first, and as it turns out my only, a friend, I no longer recall who, but I am so grateful, suggested that a good way to keep up with the gang back home would be to start a blog.... Read more

For the past several years I’ve been careful to mark out today, making sure folk are aware that the Episcopal Church has a feast day for Gregorio Aglipay. He’s just a favorite spiritual figure for me. And, I think he deserves to better known than he is. Aglipay was born in 1860. He was a priest and fervent Filipino patriot, one of the leaders of the revolution, who at the same time led a schism from the Roman Catholic Church,... Read more

A STORY OF EGYPT A Meditation on Labor Day, Black Lives Matter, & the Great Work of Our Lives James Ishmael Ford Delivered on the 4th of September, 2016 At the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica, California Once upon a time, so very long ago we can’t count, and in a land so very far away no one alive today has been able to travel to it by road or ship, there was a great empire. Let’s call... Read more