{"id":1289,"date":"2008-11-20T16:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-20T16:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life\/"},"modified":"2011-11-01T15:12:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T19:12:02","slug":"stealing-a-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Stealing a Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SSXVXK7kc-I\/AAAAAAAAB5M\/OO2HdAEdcGk\/s1600-h\/paquette_trickster1.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 306px;height: 400px\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SSXVXK7kc-I\/AAAAAAAAB5M\/OO2HdAEdcGk\/s400\/paquette_trickster1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><br>I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I\u2019m serving follows the fact my immediate predecessor was a plagiarist. It was quite the local scandal and he left in disgrace. I mentioned to John how the complexity included how this person\u2019s sermons included stories of events in his life that changed him and caused him to walk in new directions. Only they weren\u2019t his experiences\u2026<\/p>\n<p>John responded, \u201cI like the guy who made up his life. Those people are always surprising. I\u2019ve had guys give me whole Vietnam traumas who never went there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Surprising, yes.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019ve mainly thought about the woundedness that leads to such things.<\/p>\n<p>Of course this is complicated in my own life by my memories of my childhood. My father who had a very rough life, perhaps a third grade education, but was very, very intelligent, and loved science fiction. He conveyed that love to me. And I\u2019m absolutely positive it led to my becoming a reader, and all that followed in my life\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere along the line he started writing stories. He never had but a typescript and one or two carbon copies (there\u2019s a flash from the past\u2026), and would pass them around for friends to read. I love \u2019em. And kept asking him to try and sell them. I had fantasies how perhaps he could get away from bartending and all the problems that alcohol led to in our family\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p>Then one day he gave me his latest story. I had read it only a couple of weeks earlier in a magazine he subscribed to and which he knew I read.<\/p>\n<p>We never talked about this.<\/p>\n<p>I love the idea of someone inventing a life.<\/p>\n<p>How such is surprising.<\/p>\n<p>And, I\u2019m haunted by the wounds involved.<\/p>\n<p>And how even those wounds can be passed on to others\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/33904114-4593394762011710877?l=monkeymindonline.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I\u2019m serving follows the fact my immediate predecessor was a plagiarist. It was quite the local scandal and he left in disgrace. I mentioned to John how the complexity included how this person\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stealing a Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I&#039;m serving follows the fact my immediate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stealing a Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I&#039;m serving follows the fact my immediate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Monkey Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-20T16:09:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-01T19:12:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SSXVXK7kc-I\/AAAAAAAAB5M\/OO2HdAEdcGk\/s400\/paquette_trickster1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James Ford\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James Ford\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html\",\"name\":\"Stealing a Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-11-20T16:09:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-11-01T19:12:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb\"},\"description\":\"I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I'm serving follows the fact my immediate\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Stealing a Life\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/\",\"name\":\"Monkey Mind\",\"description\":\"Easily distracted...\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb\",\"name\":\"James Ford\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James Ford\"},\"description\":\"James Ishmael Ford is a writer and spiritual director. He has been authorized as a teacher within two traditional Zen lineages. James has washed dishes, assisted a crab fisherman on the Florida keys, worked in bookstores up and down the California coast, and served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He currently lives with his spouse Jan and her mother in Los Angeles. His next book the Intimate Way of Zen is due from Shambhala Publications in July, 2024.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.emptymoonzen.org\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Ishmael_Ford\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/author\/jamesford\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stealing a Life","description":"I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I'm serving follows the fact my immediate","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stealing a Life","og_description":"I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I'm serving follows the fact my immediate","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html","og_site_name":"Monkey Mind","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029","article_published_time":"2008-11-20T16:09:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-11-01T19:12:02+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SSXVXK7kc-I\/AAAAAAAAB5M\/OO2HdAEdcGk\/s400\/paquette_trickster1.jpg"}],"author":"James Ford","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James Ford","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html","name":"Stealing a Life","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-11-20T16:09:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-01T19:12:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb"},"description":"I was exchanging notes with my Zen teacher when I mentioned one of the threads of my life at this new church I'm serving follows the fact my immediate","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/11\/stealing-a-life.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stealing a Life"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/","name":"Monkey Mind","description":"Easily distracted...","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb","name":"James Ford","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"James Ford"},"description":"James Ishmael Ford is a writer and spiritual director. He has been authorized as a teacher within two traditional Zen lineages. James has washed dishes, assisted a crab fisherman on the Florida keys, worked in bookstores up and down the California coast, and served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He currently lives with his spouse Jan and her mother in Los Angeles. His next book the Intimate Way of Zen is due from Shambhala Publications in July, 2024.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.emptymoonzen.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Ishmael_Ford"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/author\/jamesford"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}