Recalling some of those spiritual leaders who died this past year. Many were figures in that great American spiritual struggle we call the Civil Rights Movement. Their ranks thinning every year. Their work, however, sacrifices and blood, continuing to birth a better world. Others a Buddhist monk, a rabbi and translator, one of the last of the Beat poets, herself closely associated with Buddhism, and a wonderful debunker of fake psychics and related. The world was enriched by... Read more

    This Saturday I had the enormous privilege of being one of the two featured speakers at the ordination of Lisa Garcia-Sampson. Excuse me, the Reverend Lisa Garcia-Sampson. Lisa is currently the Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry in North Carolina. I’ve known Reverend Lisa for many years, ever since she wandered in the First Unitarian Church of Providence while working her first job out of college. Among my last tasks as minister at Providence was presiding... Read more

        I set my current book project aside for a week. And then today, going back to the introductory section I was letting marinade, I saw how, once again, I was repeating an old habit. Perhaps all theology is autobiography, but one should be careful about over indulgence. And so I cut it from the manuscript. Now, not wanting to be wasteful, and okay, also I rather liked it, so I share it here. We all begin... Read more

    This year Hanukkah begins tonight. An interesting holiday. One the rabbis quite correctly have always felt more than ambivalent about, but also one people just love. So the rabbis worked it. And the story of a fundamentalist uprising and their pyrrhic victory is turned into a meditation on light and faith. Good things… And as I thought about this one thing led to another, and, well… A psychic once declared I had been a rabbi in a very... Read more

  A Rohatsu Meditation James Ishmael Ford Zen priest Tom Hawkins once wrote about his pilgrimage to Buddhist India. It’s been a while now. But one passage particularly caught me. And even though it’s been some years, it comes to mind every now and again. Especially today, Rohatsu, the date we mark out to recall the Buddha’s awakening. Tom wrote: We have arrived in Bodghaya. Thousands of other pilgrims, us, and then two thousand Tibetan monastics for a special gathering.... Read more

    The Zen Priest Offers an Advent Meditation James Ishmael Ford For no good reason beyond the fact this is Advent and I’m thinking about Jesus and the religion of and about him, I’ve recently found myself thinking about the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. It’s added in at the end of a collection of parables compiled by the author of the Gospel of Matthew. It isn’t repeated in either of the other two synoptics. And the John... Read more

  Dionysius’ Three Steps on the Intimate Way James Ishmael Ford I’m currently working on a book outlining the spiritual path, sort of a guidebook of practical mysticism. What follows is a chapter that didn’t really fit the arc of the book, but felt worth sharing. Among the maps of the spirit that have touched me comes from the early Christian mystic, Dionysius the Areopagite. In the Acts of the Apostles, the second half of the text that we know as... Read more

    Recently I stumbled upon, or really, re-read an interesting offering from the late independent philosopher and spiritual commentator, Alan Watts. In one longish sentence, he summarized his personal spiritual perspective. “If I am asked to define my personal tastes in religion, I must say that they lie between Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, with a certain leaning toward Vedanta and Catholicism, or rather the Orthodox Church of Eastern Europe.” As I read this, I felt profound resonances with his... Read more

  ALAN WATTS’ MYSTICAL CHRISTIANITY A Reflection on Nondual Religion James Ishmael Ford A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to review a new edition of a book by Alan Watts. Pretty good for an author who’s been dead for just shy of fifty years. As I poked through the manuscript, I found myself, not for the first time considering what an interesting thinker. And something more. Alan Watts almost perfectly captured the spiritual moment that was the 1960s.... Read more

    It’s November 27th! And with that, once again, the blessings of the saints Barlaam & Josaphat are upon us! This is flat out my favorite of all Christian holidays. And I like to remind people of the details of this original Christian Buddhist mashup. So, please forgive the repetition parts of this small sharing. It’s just that its all so cool… In the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic church as well as for those of the Eastern Churches... Read more