The Reverend Doctor DAVID P. KEYES (1945-2022) The Ministries and Faith Development staff of the Unitarian Universalist Association offer our condolences to the family and colleagues of the Rev. David P. Keyes, who died on September 13, 2022, at the age of 77. David was born on January 21, 1945, in Kansas City, MO to G.J. Keyes and Carolyn Keyes Ellis. He spent his childhood years in Kansas City and Gallatin, MO mostly with his grandparents. His own... Read more

    Going back to a year that might have changed my life Yes and . . . A Zen Jesuit Response to my blog posting Best Read on Jesus and His Message Dear James, Your “Best Read on Jesus and His Message” was more than quick summation of the Jesus sayings, miracle stories, resurrection narratives, including possible source materials, how they were collected, and the way the early church used them, including the split between the Jerusalem vs the... Read more

        Today is the 31st of October, in our Western calendar Halloween. In my corner of the world Halloween is basically about small children, and sometimes not so small putting on disguises and hoping to extort candy from the neighbors. And, yes, for some adults costumes, as well. And for a subset of them, alcohol driven parties. But I believe there’s something mysterious and wonderful about Halloween that allows children and adults and excesses of several sorts.... Read more

        It was today, the 30th of October, 1938 that Orson Welles broadcast a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, causing panic among some of the audiences across the United States. I understand it, the narrative of the panic in the country has generally been overstated. But there was panic. These things do happen. I think of how easy it is in anxious times, to misread, to overreact, and sometimes to do... Read more

            Today I stumbled upon a meme today quoting the Congregational minister Robin R. Meyers “Consider this remarkable fact: In the Sermon on the Mount, there is not a single word about what to believe, only words about what to do and how to be. by the time the Nicene creed is written, only three centuries later, there is not a single word in it about what to do and how to be – only... Read more

        We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness. And suddenly a hare ran across the road. One of us pointed to it with his hand. That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive, Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture. O my love, where are they, where are they going The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.... Read more

      The 24th of October! I try to notice this day as it rolls around in our calendar. At least for a time, the Western church recalled the Archangel Raphael on this day, the 24th of October. In more recent years he’s been mushed together with Michael and Gabriel and the three together are celebrated on the 29th of September. There are references, depending on your source to four or perhaps seven archangels. But these three are the... Read more

      INTERSPIRITUAL PRACTICE, ZEN, AND NONDUAL CHRISTIANITY: A Review James Ishmael Ford Embracing the Inconceivable: Interspiritual Practice of Zen and Christianity Ellen Birx Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 2020 I’ve now read Embracing the Inconceivable three times. The first read was fast, the old graduate school read out of a request from the publisher for an endorsement. That read led me to write how “Embracing the Inconceivable opens doors to the mysteries of our hearts and invites us in. Ellen... Read more

        It was today, the 21st of October, 1969, that Jean Louis Kerouac, or maybe it was Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, in any case, the person we know as Jack Kerouac died in St Petersburg, Florida. The day before Jack was drinking whiskey and malt liquor while working on a book. He felt a wave of nausea and then began to vomit blood. He was experiencing an esophageal hemorrage, and despite several transfusions, his liver was damaged... Read more

        When I was planning my stopover in Bangkok on a trip to Bhutan I wanted to visit the Mahayana Buddhist monastery where the English Buddhist John Blofeld’s ashes were interred. My friend the Buddhist scholar Justin Whitaker connected me to Will Yaryan. Will was a mostly retired professor of religious studies keeping his hand in at the Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Bangkok. Justin said Will knew a lot of people. My, he was right. I’ll forever be... Read more