My dear friend Rod Mead Sperry, cultural maven and old Dharma hand once opined that “Aerials” by System of a Down was a genuine Zen Buddhist song with the lyrics derived from an annecdote about the American Zen missionary Shunryu Suzuki. I think he’s right. Some important pointers for those walking the way, or who would like to… The lyrics… Life is a waterfall We’re one in the river And one again after the fall Swimming through the void We... Read more

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A friend recently commented on how Unitarian Universalism is essentially humanistic. She was writing as one of our theist UUs. And as she has a bit of a snark streak she almost certainly shouldn’t even be held responsible for her inability to avoid a dash of that snark even while owning her own humanism. Her small not quite buried aside was how precious and foolish were those nontheistic humanist compatriots who think human agency is enough in this life. Sort... Read more

Today on the nation’s front yard, they’ll begin five days of celebration that will culminate on the 28th with the formal dedication of a monument to the person and work of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. I think it long overdue. There have been various squabbles along the way. (Here’s a good overview) But the time has finally arrived. I think the sculpture powerful. A monument to a dream of a promised land… Read more

I just received a note from a Facebook friend saying “Thank you, Rev. James.” I’ve noticed that among my younger friends I’m often referred to in the third person as “The Rev” and to my face as “Rev.” The to my face part, often with a smile. This in spite of my repeated invitation to call me James. And it seems this honor comes from Unitarian Universalists and Buddhists alike. The major commonality appears to be age, all being younger... Read more

I realize this is now pushing hard on fifty years, but in my young adolescence I discovered H. P. Lovecraft. No doubt his dark universe that spanned the course of much, maybe all of his writings, which if I recall had an evil race locked in mortal combat with an even more evil race, and that we humans were bred from apes as convenient labor and, in a pinch, for food, seemed just the thing for a boy noticing the... Read more

On this day in 1858, as Wikipedia notes, “Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace‘s same theory.” Read more

On this day in 1895 the outlaw John Wesley Hardin was shot dead. A controversial figure, in one of the early biographies he was described as so mean he once shot a man for snoring. (Admittedly there are those who would consider this justifiable homicide) But eventually a mythic personification emerged as a counter point to the tough and murderous gunfighter, as one of those Robin Hood like characters, standing up for the poor and against the grasping rich. Bob... Read more

Yesterday on PBS’s Newshour, Paul Solman & Elizabeth Shell did a distressing story about wealth distribution in the United States. The pie chart breaks out wealth here by fifths of the population. Actually the chart is misleading. It is in fact much worse. While twenty percent of the American population control eighty-four percent of the wealth, If I got this right, in fact one tenth of one percent control most of this. Solman took a piece of paper with three... Read more

On the 30th of July I was invited to bring greetings from the Boundless Way Zen sangha and to give a brief talk at the Providence Center during their Founder’s Day celebrations. They’ve just posted it. And here it is Read more