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I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors – Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of Eye – And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky – Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise – Emily Dickinson Read more

Thanks Bill, by way of Posey! Read more

Last evening I sliced my left index finger rather nastily while peeling potatoes. This morning it is pretty sensitive (actually started bleeding again at one point) making typing a bit difficult. But, time and tide… I note today is Rex Stout’s birthday and therefore, Nero Wolfe’s… I’ve read, I’m moderately confident, every one of his Nero Wolfe mysteries. Mostly I read them in the first couple of years I attended seminary. Well written, and with pretty much a single plot... Read more

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Not Knowing is Most Intimate Thomas Huxley, Deep Agnosticism & an Emergent Liberal Spirituality A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford 30 November 2008First Unitarian ChurchProvidence, Rhode IslandText The monk Fayan visited Master Dizang who asked the young student of the way, “Where have you come from?” Fayen replied, “I wander from here to there on my pilgrimage.” The master asked, “What is the point of your pilgrimage?” Fayan answered, “I don’t know.” Master Dizang replied, “Not knowing is most intimate.”... Read more

As it turns out today is the forty-third anniversary of Arlo Guthrie’s conviction for littering. Many happy returns… Read more

The middle way of spiritual inquiry. I recall a story I read about a modern day alchemist whom the writer suggested would entertain any concept, if it were sufficiently unlikely. We need to resist having minds so open our brains are in danger of falling out. Nor, at the other end, to be like Heinrich Schliemann, the amateur archeologist who dug right through Troy, destroying most of it, while on his quest. On the spiritual quest we need to be... Read more

Against the backdrop of Thanksgiving and the continuing horror in Mumbai… I gather last week or so a Walmart worker claimed, perhaps falsely, to have been trampled by shoppers. Well, it really happened today, on Long Island. In a story bylined by Joe Gould of the Daily News, “Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him. ‘He was bum-rushed by... Read more

It seems to me the nexus point for any reflection on evolution, Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism such as I’ll be attempting this Sunday is Thomas Huxley. In my researches I stumbled upon a rather wonderful appreciation of Buddhism he wrote in what is an increasingly important document to me, his meditation Evolution and Ethics. It represents an idealized vision of Buddhism not uncommon among nineteenth century Western intellectuals. I don’t have time within the constraints of a sermon to explain... Read more