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

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I,... Read more

I’ve just read the Fred Kellerman, who was the last of the Weavers died yesterday morning. He was eighty-nine years old. He was preceded in death by Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and of course, Pete Seeger. For my younger readers, Wikipedia tell us “The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children’s songs, labor songs,... Read more

As many of my friends are probably more aware of than they care, I am currently working on a book on Zen meditation with particular reference to the Zen koan. (For Wisdom Publications, the working title is Learning the Language of Dragons, thank you for asking…) Anyway, as part of my researches I’ve been rummaging around the web looking for odds and ends on the subject. And that’s how I stumbled upon something I wrote about a decade ago. The... Read more

It was on this day in 1914, one hundred and two years ago, that Martha, the last known living passenger pigeon died. It is said that when Europeans first came to this continent the sky would be blacked out by the flight of passenger pigeons. While always hunted for food the killing of the pigeons moved to an industrial scale in the nineteenth century. The last confirmed killing of a wild bird, and I note this was also the last... Read more

I would like to hold up for your consideration a small out of print book. Think of it as an invitation to hang out in used bookstores. While there look around for Simons Roof’s Journeys on the Razor-edged Path.   In 1955 Roofs quit his job, packed up his family, and spent the next two years in India. Journeys was the result of that adventure. I read it somewhere in my late adolescence at the very beginning of my spiritual quest,... Read more

Have you ever been mugged and had a friend ask you why you wanted that to happen? This actually happened to a friend of mine. The premise within this exchange is that we are in control of what happens to us. If we’re right with the universe everything we want will be ours. And, so, if we have cancer, we wanted it. If a child is born into a war and starves to death, well. They must have had unfinished... Read more

I recall this strip from my misbegotten youth. I’m not actually sure about the exact chronology, but I associate it with my early explorations of Zen meditation. At the time I found it helpful. Today, maybe a bit less so. Nonetheless, thank you, Mr Crumb. It was a trip… Read more

Yesterday Jan and I saw the imaginative recreation of Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama’s first date, Southside With You. We left the movie smiling. Bottom line: a lovely, if slight film. But, then what else should one expect from a movie about a first date. As to what the pros think, when I googled “Southside With You” and “review” three brief quotes popped up. One by Manohla Dargis at the New York Times reads, “Sweet, slight, and thuddingly sincere.” Another... Read more