My flight out from Providence to Clatskanie, Oregon, where Great Vow Zen monastery is hosting this year’s gathering began to take on the character of a quest, with adventures, misadventures, and digressions. What is normally more or less a seven-hour experience turned out to be fifteen hours, counting the hour plus from the airport in Portland to the monastery. I’m recovering from a bout, mild, but a bout nonetheless of pneumonia, and not feeling totally up to speed. The trip... Read more

Annie Besant was born on this day in 1847. When George Bernard Shaw recruited Annie Besant to the Fabian Society in 1885 he called it a major victory for the cause, as he declared she was “the greatest orator in England.” She was a social activist and journalist. And one of the most famous women in England. Everything changed when she was engaged to interview and expose the spiritualist Helena Blavatsky who had announced she was channelling ascended masters. Like... Read more

September 30th is a big day in American Universalist history. Elhanan Winchester was born in Brookline, MA (apparently in those days Brookline was called Muddy River Village…) on this day in 1751. And, John Murray was born in Alton, Hampshire (not New Hampshire) in England on this day in 1741. Murray is a particular favorite of mine for many reasons, but not the least of which is his delightful telling of when he was a calvinist Methodist going with a... Read more

Today is Michaelmas, or my preferred name the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael, or the shorter version the Feast of the Archangels. I think one of the great gifts to Western religions from Zoroastrianism was the idea of angels. Where they got it, I don’t know with any certainty, but on first blush it does sort of look like an adaptation of local deities for monotheistic religions. Wherever they come from, the idea of spiritual beings that... Read more

TELLING STORIES A Yom Kippur Meditation 28 September 2014 James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text We have seen Yitzhak Perlman Who walks the stage with braces on both legs, On two crutches. He takes his seat, unhinges the clasps of his legs, Tucking one leg back, extending the other, Laying down his crutches, placing the violin under his chin. On one occasion one of his violin strings broke. The audience grew silent but the violinist didn’t... Read more

Last night I had quite the dream. I was suffocating, and I wasn’t. The thrust of the dream was that I was suffocating. I could feel the air shutting off. And, at the same time, I was aware I was breathing. I’d dived into some liminal space between sleep and waking, where the dream was driven by the reality of my pneumonia, but another part, a “waking” part knew that I really was breathing, if not optimally… Makes one appreciate... Read more

Actually, Lenard Cohen tells us how to live. The quote comes thanks to Zen teacher Brad Warner writing in response to something Sam Harris, who is many things, some delightful, but not a Zen teacher said about the relative merits of Zen meditation and Dzogchen. So, thanks, Brad, for pointing us to Zen priest Leonard Cohen’s advice. “Sometimes when you no longer see yourself as the hero of your own drama, expecting victory after victory and you understand deeply that... Read more

…I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. East Corker III Thomas Stearns Eliot was born... Read more

Sheldon Allan Silverstein, sometimes known as Uncle Shelby, but probably best known as Shel Silverstein was born on this day in 1930. A man of many talents, but it looks like his lasting legacy is going to come from his children’s books. Always a bit of a surprise to me, as I first encountered him sneaking looks at my father’s Playboys while looking for other things. I was completely taken with his surreal cartoons. A person of many parts… Read more

THIS DEWDROP WORLD A Meditation on the Coming Ecological Catastrophe & the Only Way Through James Ishmael Ford 21 September 2014 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text This dewdrop world Is a dewdrop world And yet, and yet. Kobayashi Issa I’ve been thinking a lot about identity of late. In particular I find myself thinking about my recent visit with some thirty or so UU ministerial colleagues at a district clergy gathering. A handful of those present were retired.... Read more