Today marks out three hundred and seventeen years since the last person was executed for the crime of blasphemy in Great Britain. Thomas Aikenhead, a medical student, was twenty years old. According to Wikipedia his indictment read in part: That … the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling... Read more

Saturday evening I passed on denkai transmission to Jay Weik, Rinsen Osho, in a traditional Soto Zen ceremony. The next morning we had a lovely public celebration. Here’s an accurate enough account of the public event. Read more

This video is getting some traction, with over 55,000 views on Facebook It reminds me of the Jon Watts video from 2009. George Fox & Elias Hicks spiritual leaders for a new age… A truly compelling spiritual movement… Read more

ON BEING GOOD A Meditation on Why & How James Ishmael Ford The other day I wrote a brief reflection in defense of atheists. I noted that the high profile of the New Atheists aside, and the misleading concentration of nontheists within both Unitarian Universalist and Buddhists in my circles making nontheists seem more numerous than they are, in reality atheists are a beleaguered minority. They suffer all sorts of insult and injury for their world view and having the... Read more

Dear all, My goodness. 2014. This past year I turned sixty-five. I’m rather surprised at how that has hung in my consciousness. In some ways just a convenience. On the other hand by all our social conventions I am now officially old. And. Dying. Of course we’re all dying. From the moment we draw that first precious breath, there will be a last one. So, the question hangs out there. “What will you do with your one wild & precious... Read more

There’s a recent essay making the rounds in my part of the Facebook world, where the author reveals that atheists are educated elites who can afford to indulge their belief, or, probably its more accurate to say non-belief, and are absolute jerks for saying out loud what a lot of people fear might be true: there is no God. Their unpleasant character is taken as evidence of something. What that something is, appears obvious to me. According to a Pew... Read more

I just learned recently retired San Francisco Zen Center abbot Steve Myogen Stucky died about two hours ago. The echoes of the bell at the San Francisco Zen Center, which rang one hundred, eight times at the moment of his death are still reverberating… As I write these words his community is preparing his body. He asked to be cremated wearing an okesa sewn by his friends. I didn’t know Steve well. But, I did know him. And I really,... Read more

In the Episcopal Church’s Liturgical calendar today is the feast of the remarkable Frances Joseph-Gaudet. Their collect for her is a prayer of thanks for “Frances Joseph-Gaudet(‘s) work for prison reform and the education of her people: Grant that we, encouraged by the example of her life, may work for those who are denied the fullness of life by reasons of incarceration and lack of access to education…” Would that there were more like the blessed Frances. Amen. Read more

Roebuck “Pops” Staples would have been ninety-nine years old today. Read more

A bunch of years ago when I was serving a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Arizona the Sunday following Christmas was close enough I thought that I’d preach on Boxing Day. My friend Kellie Walker who was also our music director asked what exactly was Boxing Day? I said beyond some English thing, I didn’t have a clue. She gave me that look and said, “James, what if it turns out its the day the English celebrate forcing the Chinese to... Read more