As a child I had a fascination with words. Just words. Loved them. I’d go to the public library wherever we lived a number of times a week and visit the large Merriam Webster 2nd International Dictionary, which almost always was set on its own stand in some place of honor. I’d open it up on occasion looking for a word I’d heard an adult use, but more usually just at random, and see what I’d find. Of course one... Read more

Apparently it was on this day in 1764 that Edward Gibbon saw a group of friars singing in the ruins of Rome’s Temple of Jupiter. It sparked something in him, and led, we are told, directly to his writing the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I read that book in my mid twenties. And I loved, just loved it. I thought it was a lyrical text, and by and large spoke truths about looking to... Read more

Wishing a happy birthday to Paul Simon! Read more

The good folk at Wikipedia say that it was this day in 539 before our common era that Babylon fell to Cyrus, who came to be called the Great. Cyrus is one of those signal figures in history, a warrior king who established something, actually many things that lasted beyond his reign, some reaching into modernity. Most scholars rank his importance as equal to that other “great,” Alexander. But for me the interest is religious. While he was probably a... Read more

WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU NOTICE ALL RELIGIONS ARE FALSE My Story of Sorting Wheat from Chaff & Finding a Life Worth Living A Sermon James Ishmael Ford 11 October 2015 Pacific Unitarian Church Rancho Palos Verdes, California “Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj A couple of years ago I wrote an entry for my Monkey Mind blog titled “All Religions are False.” In... Read more

On one of my Facebook groups we were asked about what texts we might consider sacred. For me those do not have to be written or dictated by some divinity, but rather represent the deepest insight of our humanity. This is my list for today. Tomorrow I suspect the list would be a bit different. Some of these I’ve read over and over. One or two I’ve only read once or twice, but they continue to echo in my heart.... Read more

I have been laid low with a nasty bug for just about a full two weeks. The small glimmer of light during that time were the Peter Diamond British police procedural mysteries by Peter Lovesey. And I want to say thank you. According to the Wikipedia article on Lovesey his “novels and stories fall into the category of entertaining puzzlers in the ‘Golden Age’ tradition of mystery writing.” I would say more, they are classic mysteries, intricately plotted, with the... Read more

Bebo Valdes was born on this day in 1918. Read more

Was first recorded by Judy Garland on this day in 1938. While not that version, this is the one that captured so many hearts. There have been many covers since, some astonishingly beautiful. But, this is how I see it when I hear it… Read more

Funkadelic guitarist Lucas “Tawl” Ross was born on this day in 1948. Read more