The 30th of August the ever delightful Episcopal Church celebrates a feast in honor of the life and ministry of Charles Chapman Grafton. I wrote about him a couple of years ago. And it feels time to revisit… Born a Boston brahman in 1830, Grafton was educated at Philips Academy and Harvard College. Originally he had prepared for the law, but theological interests overcame, and he read theology with William Whittingham, Tractarian and Episcopal bishop of Maryland. Beginning... Read more

    On the evening of the 26th of August, 2022, in Long Beach, California, I was honored to give Mo Myokan Weinhardt and Tom Daimon Wardle denkai transmission within my Zen lineages. This is the first step of transmission within our Zen sangha. The new Dharma Holders are authorized to gather and lead communities of practice, function as spiritual directors, and give Zen’s sixteen precepts. The only reservation to their authorizations is that they may not authorize teachers, themselves.... Read more

    Blood, that wears treason in his face, Villain complete in parson’s gown, How much he is at court in grace For stealing Ormond and the crown! Since loyalty does no man good, Let’s steal the King, and outdo Blood! John Wilmot, History of Insipids Thomas Blood died on this day, the 24th of August, 1680. He’d been in a coma for two days. He was born in 1618 in County Clare, in the Kingdom of Ireland. His father... Read more

    “Make of yourself a light” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal-a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old man, he lay down between two sala trees, and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour. The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields. Around... Read more

    The Dark Soil of God A Zen Meditation on the Psalms James Ishmael Ford The earth belongs to the Divine and everything on it. For the Divine wove it out of the emptiness of space and breathed life into every corner, bringing forth all life, and all of it precious.   Who is fit to care for this and worthy to act as God’s representative?   Those passionate for truth, who are horrified by injustice, who stand with the... Read more

      Fortune favors the bold. Great line, that. Comes from the Latin, where it was a sturdy proverb. Possibly distilled from a line from the Pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus. It has a couple of variations, but with the same meaning. The line appears in Virgil’s Aeneid and Terence’s Phormio. Ovid gives it a twist in Ars Amatoria, “Venus, like Fortune, favors the bold.” One can see why it would appeal. But, there is a caution. Pliny the Elder in... Read more

      Thomas Edward Lawrence was born today, the 16th of August, in 1888, in Wales. The family situation was, well, complicated. He read, as they say, history at Jesus College, Oxford. Taking his degree he received a scholarship to travel to the Middle East. Lawrence quickly learned Arabic and worked as an archeologist under the direction of the renowned Leonard Woolley and others. In 1914 Woolley and Lawrence began working secretly for the British military. In October of... Read more

      In the Eastern Christian churches today, the 15th of August, is marked as the Dormition of the Theotokos. In the Roman calendar today is called the feast of the Assumption of Mary. In the Anglican calendar this day is traditionally marked as the “falling asleep of the blessed virgin Mary,” although there are more than a few Anglicans who hold to some view of physical assumption for our lady. I like to think of it as the... Read more

        THE GOD OF DIRT A Reflection on the Spirituality of Mary Oliver James Ishmael Ford I. Something came up out of the dark. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t an animal or a flower, unless it was both. Something came up out of the water, a head the size of a cat but muddy and without ears. I don’t know what God is. I don’t know what death is. But I believe... Read more

    Florence Nightingale died on this day, the 13th of August in 1910. She was born on the 12th of May, 1820, into a wealthy English Unitarian family, in Florence and was named for the city of her birth. Florence was raised among the Unitarian intellectual elites, counting among her life long friends James and more importantly his sister Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Blackwell who would become the first woman medical doctor recognized in England. She was educated at... Read more