There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving... Read more

To put it bluntly Edward O. Wilson is one of my heroes. To my mind he looks at the world with a clear eye, but never a jaundiced one. He loves our world and he calls us to look at how we relate to it. Also he’s a pretty good writer. One of his really important books, to my mind, is Biophilia. Near the end of it he writes: (A) healthful environment, the warmth of kinship, right-sounding moral strictures, sure-bet... Read more

MY SOUL IS A RIVERInterdependence and Social Justice A Sermon byJames Ishmael Ford 13 January 2008First Unitarian SocietyWest Newton, Massachusetts Text When you do things from your soul,you feel a river moving in you, a joy.When actions come from another section,the feeling disappears.Don’t let others lead you.They may be blind or, worse, vultures.Reach for the rope of God.And what is that?Putting aside self-will.Because of willfulness people sit in jail,the trapped bird’s wings are tied,fish sizzle in the skillet.The anger of... Read more

There’s a story that is the best metaphor I’ve so far found to describe our human condition. Most have heard the first part. The second is less well known, but I believe most important. The first part tells of people in a village beside a river. One day a woman walking along the side of the river sees a baby floating downstream. She dives in and rescues the child. The next day a fisherman sees another baby floating down the... Read more

Recently I was listening to a commentator on the presidential campaign opine how he was glad that John Edwards star appears to be fading as Edwards was in the forefront of those calling for class warfare. Actually this line seems to be fairly common, particularly from the pages of the Wall Street Journal and similar voices. It’s applied to those who suggest our society is stacked against ordinary people in favor of the rich. Apparently this has become successful strategy.... Read more

Recently I was asked to read an advance copy of David Loy’s forthcoming book Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution and see if I wanted to write a blurb for it. (Funny how one writes a book and in the process become an official expert, considered competent to comment on other books. Makes me wonder what the mystical relationship must be between tautology and feedback loop…) As Loy is one of my heroes, I said, sure. Then... Read more

I’ve mentioned this before, but its important to me. Not very long after Jan, auntie & I moved out to Newton, Massachusetts, Jan & I drove out to the Cambridge cemetery with flowers for the James boys, she carrying hers for Henry and me carrying mine for William. It took a while but we found the family site and while gazing on their graves meditated a bit on their gifts to American, Western and I don’t think it too much... Read more

amen. Read more

I believe… that a very sizable number of adherents of every major world faith will agree that critical thinking and an openness to new ideas and problems are crucial for the health and continued growth of any religion. In the end, perhaps this is the highest expression of the humility so greatly valued in both Christian and Buddhist monastic rules: As any religion can be seen as ultimately more a means to the truth than an end, and as the... Read more

I was just visiting with a friend who is dealing with a pretty advanced cancer. He’s one of the people I really admire. For all sorts of reasons, how he has lived his life, and now how he’s dealing with very, very rough times. Anyway, in a conversation that touched on this and that, eventually we turned to politics. Let me tell you, if you want to get a handle on things, find a little perspective, have a conversation about... Read more