Zen & the Business of Death The following is the raw transcription of an interview with Zen teacher and Unitarian Universalist minister James Ishmael Ford, conducted by Holly Haynes, at the time a student at Harvard Divinity School. The date from the transcription service is January, 2006. It is likely the interview took place sometime late in 2005. There have been no attempts to correct even the more glaring mistakes INTERVIEWER: First of all I guess, how do you conceive... Read more

Our administrator at First Unitarian (otherwise known as the brains of the outfit) was by herself in the office. It was getting late in the afternoon, but there was lots and lots to do. Always is… A member of the college-age group, a senior at the large university that surrounds our church walked in. Being one of those kids who are very involved in things small and large, she’d been serving as a liaison for an older returning student, who... Read more

Many years ago I worked for Holmes Book Company in Oakland, California. It was one of those lovely old bookstores that have pretty much disappeared along with the dodo and saying “Joe and me” rather than “me and Joe.” I’d just dropped out of High School and I needed the work. It looked better than bagging groceries. And, and, I can’t say how lucky I was to get that particular job. While my prospects weren’t very good, I had one... Read more

Gary Snyder Tuesday, March 167:30 PMActon Boxborough Regional High School Auditorium36 Charter RoadActon Free Admission Please join us for a special night with a reading by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder. Snyder is the author of sixteen books of poetry and prose, including The Gary Snyder Reader (1952-1998) (Counterpoint Press, 1999); Mountains and Rivers Without End (1997); No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1993), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; The Practice of the Wild (1990);... Read more

LEGENDS OF THE DRUNKEN MASTERS Intoxication and the Spiritual Life James Ishmael Ford 28 February 2010 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Look at the caravan, O guide, all the camels are lined up drunkKing drunk, teacher drunk, friend drunk, all else drunkO Gardener, the musician’s thunder brought forth the cloud of the wine-bearerGarden drunk, meadow drunk, rose drunk and thorn drunkO revolving skies how many times upon this path are wayfarerDust drunk, water drunk, wind drunk, fire drunkThe... Read more

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807. Here’s a little taste of his work, “A Psalm of Life.” Read more

I see that on this day in 1917 the Original Dixieland Jass Band issued the Livery Stable Blues, the first known Jazz recording. I looked it up at Youtube, and bless ’em, they have it! They claimed to be the creators of Jazz, which of course isn’t true. But they were the first to bring Jazz to the world… So, good on them! Apparently they were most famous for their rendition of Tiger Rag… Read more

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The other day I found I had to briefly state my spiritual position. I’ve done this before. And there are certain broad strokes that inform my interior life, but the details fluctuate a fair bit. So, I felt I needed to start from scratch and write something anew. And this is a good practice, I think. In fact there is much made in Unitarian Universalist circles these days of “elevator speeches,” summations of one’s faith that can be shared in... Read more