To Catch a Thief: Retelling an Ancient Hindu Story

        The story that forms this sermon is inspired by a tale recounted in Simons Roof’s Journeys on the Razor-Edged Path. From that place I try to outline the arc of a spiritual life.

Uncategorized sermon Story Hindu James Ishmael Ford Journeys on the Razor-edged path

Joseph Priestly, the Priestly Riots, and the Dawn of Modern Liberal Religion

            Of course today is Bastille Day. And a tip of the hat to that revolution marked by the storming of the prison in 1789. It is also the anniversary of another uprising of sorts, a counter ri

Uncategorized Unitarian Liberal Religion Joseph Priestly

Mother of Exiles: Recalling the Destruction of a City, and with it, the Birth of a Religion

  By calculations noted at good old Wikipedia today, the 13the of July, marks the conclusion of the siege of Jerusalem and its sacking by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian army. As the actual year isn’t pre

Uncategorized Babylon Jerusalem exile Psalm 137

Like a Bite of Madeleine: Marcel Proust & His Zen Koan

    It was on this day, the 10th of July, 1871, that Valentin Louis Georges Eugene Marcel Proust was born in Paris. His was a well to do family, his father Catholic, his mother Jewish. It is said that

Uncategorized Zen koan Ross Bolleter cake In search of lost time Madeleine Marcel Proust Remembrance of things past

The Unicorn in the Garden: A Zen Story Retold

    So, my old friend in the dharma, the Zen teacher Dosho Port send me a note saying how he enjoyed my retelling the koan like parable of the laborers in the Vineyard, noting how it reminded him of t

Uncategorized Zen koan case 132 Entangling Vines