[audio http://members.dslextreme.com/users/dra/KWEoS02.mp3]

I discussed my reactions with a friend, who asked me to think about who it is that posts such comments. My friend reminded me that most of the people in the world are kind, wonderful people, (like the ones that read this blog!), it's just that those do not get as much press coverage. The people who post comments on news stories are often those who are seeking their five seconds of fame, and think that by shocking the rest of us they will get it.

This is all true enough, and it was good to have that reminder. Once I got beyond my initial anger and sadness, though, I had to ask (because I MUST ask ;) ) what I wanted to to with these emotions now that I was aware of them? I looked; I sought; I pondered. One of my favorite teachers says not to focus on others' disasters unless you intend to do something physical or tangible to help. And if you do the helpful thing, do it because it feels like the right thing to do, not out of guilt, or because someone else thinks you should. So, for instance, in the situation which has currently become known as "The War", either I should take some action such as volunteering to obtain and ship supplies to the troops, start a letter campaign to lawmakers, or join up and fight. Otherwise, if I'm not going to do these things, it's best to stop talking about "The War", because all I do is become mired, and help to mire others, in angst, anxiety, and fear---and this does not help.

I believe this sincerely, and it's one of the reasons I often avoid major news outlets, because it seems their very purpose is to mire us in angst, anxiety, and fear. I have given a lot of thought as to the "why" of that. A quote attributed to Gandhi is: "Be the change you wish to see in the world". I do believe that before I can go around deciding how to "fix society", some of my time would be well spent in "fixing myself", as I'd then be of more use and more at peace with the next actions I take. Please understand that I'm NOT saying I'm "broken", or that any of us are. We are all the perfect "us" at the perfect time. I just believe I am a stronger person when I can let go of some residual fear and unkindness within myself which makes me feel disconnected from you, and from the population of the Universe.

BlogCatalog has declared May 15 as "Blog for Human Rights" Day. I've participated in two others of their Bloggers Unite campaigns, and I generally feel good about doing so. In thinking about "Human Rights" in wake of current "Natural Disasters", what comes to me is one of the more basic human Rights, after the basics such as food, clothing, and shelter (which of course, not everyone has at the moment) is the right to choose ones life path. It seems some repressive regimes, some weather occurrences, and some levels of lack prevent many from having that luxury.

On this day, I look at ways I still act repressively or unkindly in my own life, imagine how much better it would feel it I did it differently, and choose three things I can do now to help allow more joy into parts of the world which demand my attention. I will state that I feel spending time in prayer, if that is ones practice, or meditation, or any other observance that helps connect, is tangible help, and is to be honored. In addition to my own mediation, I have chosen to do the following: Rejoin UNICEF. As a child, I used to participate in "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" on Halloween, and those activities were some of my most satisfying holiday memories. We collected money in little milk cartons, instead of candy in bags, from the homes we visited for "Trick or Treat". We then had a party with the other children, so we did get some treats, too. :)

There is a local chapter of UNICEF in southern Arizona which allows me to join the international organization, too. The first thing I saw on their website was the slogan Unite for Children. In addition to them being there for relief in the current situations, they work for children's rights throughout the world. As I believe children ought to be treated with dignity, respect, and value, this interests me. Another thing I like about UNICEF is that they are "for" many more things than they are "against". This is a crucial balance for me beacause I believe in the value of positive language.

I've also made a donation to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, after making sure that the the Magen David Society of Israel was also a member (using their own symbol, as well as the new "connotation free" symbol the Federation now has). I generally don't support organzations focused within one particular religious tradition, so their breadth and scope was important to me.

The above actions feel right and good to me. I don't necessarily recommend them, they are just what has inspired me today. May you find your own peace within your own world. Namasté.

~ ~ ~ On a personal note, I will be out of town attending a conference for the next week. It will be a fun, learning experience in a beautiful place. I'll be involved in activities from 9 in the morning 'til 9 at night, and in between I'll be sleeping, eating, taking walks, and trying to catch the occasional nap. So, I probably won't be posting or checking in much during that time (perhaps a quick update), but please be assured, if you are kind enough to leave comments, that I value them tremendously, and I will answer them--just not quite as quickly as is my usual habit. I'll have a lot of blog reading to do when I get back, too. Cheers, everyone, and have a wonderful week! :D

The ugly duckling did not become a swan-she was a swan all along and just didn't realize it. I am already a swan. You are already a swan.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world. The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article 'Aliens Are My Brother'. Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.

Asked about the Catholic Church's condemnation four centuries ago of the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo, Father Funes diplomatically says mistakes were made, but it is time to turn the page and look towards the future.

Science and religion need each other, and many astronomers believe in God, he assures readers.
To strengthen its scientific credentials, the Vatican is organising a conference next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.
By David Willey BBC News, Rome

So where am I going?

Sometimes it feels like I am walking into an abyss of professionalism and just then, I pull myself back, asking what I want from life - professionalism or madness or can I have both?

What does it mean to live your life? Stream of consciousness? Too heavy duty for me. As I took some stock, I recognized that what I want from myself is honesty, that honesty which stands out in the stark nakedness of vulnerability, that honesty which is apparent in that one drop of tear which you shed in the purest moment of happiness, that honesty which needs no pretense, no show, no comparisons, that honesty which needs only me, me in all my colours ...

I want myself back from life. Hence, can I wed myself to my words as much as I can? Can I write for the sake of myself, of redeeming myself from the abyss? Yes, write I can, to reclaim myself, to claim those that I am yet to know and to know that of myself which I don't know yet and am yet to know.

Perhaps ...

I will whistle the song in my heart

[If I don't care for the tune as long as I am in tune with life and all that surrounds me ...]

Perhaps ...

I will let my hair down

[And not bother how knotted it can get as long as letting my hair down will let me untie myself ...]

Perhaps ...

I will fall

[As long as falling down helps me to leap into faith and let go of holding myself back ...]

Perhaps ...

I will dance

[In madness, in laughter, in passion, getting in tune with the lives around me ...]

Perhaps ...

I will do none of the above

[And hope that I will do all of this some day, one day, some time, one time ...]

Perhaps ...

I will do all of the above ...

[And open my heart and existence to all the wonders that exist and those yet to come ...]

(This post is dedicated to my friends Dinesh, Altaf and Tushar and all for all the wonderous times we have spent together and that absolute togetherness that binds us somehow!)

The Boy and I had a long, emotional talk about the conversion issue. Of course this was while I wasn't feeling well so I cried through most of it. Basically I said the same things that I said in Ch-ch-changes. I've asked him to be open with me about his thoughts and feelings. I think I was exaggerating how the Boy felt about the issue because he wasn't talking to me about how he felt. This is the first major issue that we've had in our year and a half relationship, and it's very hard to resolve on the phone when you're a 12-hour drive away. Oh well, relationships are work. Luckily we respect each other and can work things out. Things are better now and he really is a great boyfriend. (You guys only get to hear me stress out about him and the religion issue here.)

I met with the missionaries today. The meeting was less tense than the last meeting. However, it is very awkward to have a conversation about the Law of Chastity with three men when no one else is around. Not to mention slightly inappropriate. I realize that someone has to teach me about it... but it was strange. I wish they had just told me to read the pamphlet and then I could ask them questions if I didn't understand something. Seriously, how hard is the Law of Chastity to understand? I even summed it up for them: no sexual relations or activities outside of marriage. But then they had to clarify what those activities were. I spent most of the time staring at my shoes and zoning out. The ward member who was there did the same. Much to my surprise, I answered "yes" when I was asked if I would obey the Law of Chastity. I was planning on refusing to answer because I think it's between me and God and it's no one else's business. I think I just wanted the awkwardness to be over so I blurted out "yes." Awkward.

Anyhow, I feel like joining the LDS Church is like coming back home and I know that being baptized is the right decision. :-)

Go over and check out the post, so you can understand the rest of this post.

I tried to come up with a parallel to Gary's story. All I could think of was the piano. For all intents and purposes, I am a musical wilder. I don't claim to know much about the piano. I can't read music, and my rhythm is an awful mess. but, what I do know, I learned from spending too many hours at an upright plucking until something sounded good. Eventually I learned that some of these good sounding combinations are called chords, and off I went.

Now, I get by knowing a few guitar chords. I lead worship at small churches, etc. I still can't read music, but I can read guitar chords fairy well. You may see me before a service bent over a hymn book with a pencil and a piece of paper, looking like a secret agent trying to decode a secret message. I'm trying to transfer sheet music to my language - guitar chords.

If you're impressed with this it tells me that you do not know much about music. I say this because anybody that I have met who was educated musically has all but scoffed at my homespun education. "That's like learning to read words without knowing the alphabet," is a pretty typical response. They snort and chuckle and say something like "So, you really don't know how to play piano?"

Listen, I'm no Elton John... I mean Liberace... I mean Barry Manilow... Ahhem... I mean, I'm no Beethoven. Pretty much I play piano like a chimp - a lot of banging and noise with little sense. The only reason I started is ministerial necessity. Poor backwoods churches are short on music majors.

The point is, just because you are further down the road, doesn't mean we can't have a pleasant conversation. we could learn from eachother. When it comes to interfaith dialogs, there is more scoffing and scolding than understanding and communicating. This isn't helpful. The conversation needs to be less insecure and more civil. Whatever happened to loving your neighbor as yourself?

___________________

image source: google imagesearch

It begins as a formless and empty abyss of nothingness, foundationally nothing but darkness, yet the Spirit of God hovers and broods over it, until, in a perichoretic ecstatic expression of divine love, the Father, through His Word, by the power of His Spirit shouts "Light", and light explosively shatters the darkness, sending a violent ripple of creative energy surging - wholly saturating and exponentially multiplying - through His creation for eternity.

New Creation. New Humanity. Let it be.

Isaiah 61:11
For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise
spring up before all nations.

The myth about looking up is that all things become filled with sun and shine. This is untrue. The sun and shine are there but so is the universe and the darkness beyond. You see, this is the job of the prophet- to see beyond the sun and sky and into the depths of eternity. This is not an easy undertaking for a man such as myself who is easily blinded by the sun and preoccupied with a fear of the dark. But it is within this darkness, which sits just beyond the sun, that I look into every day with a full commitment towards revealing a truth that most ordinary mortals are to blind to see.

You may not need a prophet to inform you that these are troubling times in which we now exist. So troubling in fact that Therapists and Psychiatrists are being trained on how to deal with a very new form of anxiety called “eco-anxiety.” This is a form of anxiety that has become more chronic in the past few years with the rising information about global warming, toxins in food, toxins in the home and toxins in the air. I admit that I to may be suffering from this avant-garde form of anxiety. My life has been made more nervous by all the daily decisions that I have had to make in order to remain healthy. Even though I am a prophet I still have to be careful that my meat does not contain antibiotics and hormones, that the water I drink has been filtered, that I eat only organic food so as to reduce my exposure to pesticides and that the environment in which I live does not contain toxic materials. Granted, I am rarely able to do these things consistently so I end up with chronic anxiety because I know that the world in which I am living is making myself and everyone else sick.

Maybe this is the most difficult aspect of being a prophet- “the knowing.” Knowing so much that you always have to be on-guard about what you eat, drink, wear and breathe. In prophet circles this is referred to the as the curse of “knowing too much.” Many wonderfully gifted prophets that I have associated with have lost their mystical/metaphysical talents because they have “known to much” and as a result developed panic attacks. In order to cope with the oppressive burden of panic disorder they have elected to go onto medication and I believe it is common knowledge that all modern day psycho pharmaceutical drugs destroy the prophet’s ability to prophesize. The prophecy is enough to burden any ordinary prophet and the immense amount of personal spiritual work that I have to do in order to bare the weight of prophecy swallows up most of my time.

There was a time when I was a social creature. I spent a lot of time hanging out in bars and spending my entire days sitting in cafes. I had several girlfriends at a time and I enjoyed several sexual rendezvous a day. Now that I am older and a little less confused I rarely leave the house during the evening and during the day I am preoccupied with the work of prophecy. I have very few friends, because when I get around them I only feel aggravated by their inability to “see past the sun.” Or maybe it would be more correct to say that I am jealous of them, envious because they have no idea what is going on. They just don’t know.

I, on the other hand, know all to well. I connect the dots between earthquakes in China, floods in Burma, tsunamis in Indonesia, floods in New Orleans, rising food, living and gas prices, widening gaps between rich and poor, toxic air and food, wars, genocides and chronic battles for domination and power all happening in different parts of the world at the same time. This knowledge makes me wonder if I may not be a prime candidate to be diagnosed as suffering from “eco-anxiety.” After all I do wear a respirator when I ride my bike (to protect against gas fumes), I take two-dozen supplements a day and drink green algae drinks all through out the afternoon so as to stimulate detoxification of my vessel (body). Some think that I am over reacting and some call me paranoid- but because I am a prophet I know that they think this because "they just don’t know." Some day soon I think I will let the whole world know what I see when I look up. Then we will all be able to be anxious together and I wont have to feel so alone.

Most of the people who consider themselves to be spiritually advanced kinda consider themselves to be knowledgeable. Most of these people once they reach the saturation of their knowledge realize that reality that we see around us is nothing but a big mesh of tricks which our senses along with our mind plays on us. So this usually ends up in this knowledgeable person raising to the occasion of enlightenment declaring that the world around us is magical, mystical and an illusion. What is missed in this is though - how cunningly dualistic is our mind. As soon as we realize that this world as we experience is an illusion - the mind plays its best trick, tricking us into thinking that this so called "illusion" is out there. That this perceived illusion that we have called out is out there and the mind is a friend of ours in identifying it.

But the truth is: the illusion is not out there. It's actually played out in our heads! We tend to think that it's out there because then it becomes easy for us to label it and shelve it and go back and watch our favorite episode of 'LOST'. But in reality (so ironic) that illusion is in our minds. We carry our own illusions in our minds. This has been labeled by many people in many ways. Some people call it - "Map". We carry a map of reality in our minds. We try to sift through this so called territory with our maps.

Another populist saying in this arena is "Map is not the Territory". We keep thinking and identifying that what we see out there is reality and we form assumptions, make decisions totally blinded by the fact that we base all of them on the internal map of the territory. What a kicker would be is - that there is no actual territory. Our languages define how we think. Just close your eyes and check what do you see when you hear or read the word 'Territory'. I bet its some 3 dimensional landscape or some high view of google maps! But for the lack of words what we refer to as territory actually doesn't exist in reality. Our maps along with our minds make us believe that what we got is a map and there is a huge territory out there to explore.

Check Schroedinger's cat phenomenon, check wave particle behavior of light, check Heisenberg's uncertainty theory. It says in gist - the thing that is being observed is totally affected by the observer. Which means that in any given case, observer is part of the play. He/she is not separate. Which makes us wonder about the territory we have been talking about. At some deeper level you can feel that the territory is us and the map is just some contrived way of looking at the blips in territory.

I better stop before I get labeled as crazy. :-)

There is only ONE. One existence, One Reality. We only exist because of the truth of his existence. Our

world exists within him. If he did not continually re-invest himself in his creation at every moment, than

we would revert back to naught and nothingness G-d forbid! Many ask the question "does G-d exist"

however not so many ask "Do we exist and if so why?"

          "Dear God.

          I hate you.

          Love, Madeleine."

I have been contemplating this brief prayer for several days after I read it in Gary Thomas' Sacred Marriage (p. 157; an excellent read, btw!). Initially, I was horrified by how much I identified with the prayer and I was quite troubled by the prayer's resonance in my soul. My first reaction was "I get the point."

Them's fighting words, it seems to me. It expresses our fight (or, as in the case of Jacob, wrestling) with God. The word "hate" stands for all the frustration, agitation, disgust, exasperation, and bewilderment we experience in the presence of God as we live in a suffering, painful and hurting world. "Hate" is a fightin' word--a representation of the inexplicable pain in our lives. Sometimes, perhaps, we are too polite with God.

I hear Job in this word. God has denied Job fairness and justice, and Job is bitter (Job 23:1; 27:2). God is silent. God "throws" Job "into the mud" and treates him as an enemy (Job 30:19-20). God has attacked him and death is his only prospect (Job 30:21, 23).  Job is thoroughly frustrated, bitter in his soul, and hopeless about his future. God was a friend who turned on him--"hate" might be an accurate description of Job's feelings as he sits on the dung heap.

And yet, just as Madeleine's brief prayer, Job ends with "Love, Job." He speaks to God; Job is not silent. He does not turn from his commitment to God; he does not curse God or deny him. He seeks God even if only to speak to him and wait for an answer. He laments, complains, wails and angrily (even sarcastically) addresses his creator.

The contrast between "I hate you" and "Love, Madeleine" is powerful. It bears witness to the tension within lament and our experience of the brokeness of the world. Though deeply frustrated with the reality that surrounds us (whether it is divorce, the death of a son, the death of a wife, the plight of the poor, AIDS in Africa, etc.) and with the God who does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3; 135:6), we continue to sign our prayers (laments) with love. We have no one else to whom we can turn and there is no else worthy of our love, or even laments.

The signature--"Love, Madeleine" or "Love, John Mark"--evidences a relationship which is the foundation of the prayer itself. It is out of this love we pray; it is out of this love we lament. It is with love we say "I hate you."

The poignant irony of that last sentence is, it seems to me, the essence of honest lament.

P.S. L'Engle's A Stone for a Pillow is a wonderful exploration of fairness, suffering and our journey through the world with God though often in tension with God.

Those items that we pick up and really examine are somehow meaningful to us.  Those are our power objects.

Here are two items I picked up on a walk last week:

This was a whole rock that split into two pieces.  It was laying off the road in the sand just as you see it here, in two pieces side-by-side.  It reminded me of angel wings (or perhaps a pair of lungs?????)  As a pair of wings, it reminds me that angels are all around us.  As a pair of lungs, it reminds me to take a deep, cleansing breath now and again.

I'm not sure what drew me to this stick.  I liked the smooth surface and the two tiny branches.  It looks like it has weathered several New England storms.  What I found really neat was the worm or bug trail that is etched into the surface of the stick.  It looks like some ancient code or symbol from a long dead culture.  Of course I also thought "what a neat body this stick would make for a sculpture." :)

What objects catch your eye when you take a walk through your neighborhood or through the woods?  Have you discovered any power objects?

I’ve been getting some interesting email in response to the recent articles on TM and “the gods.” Some bring up some interesting objections that I’d like to respond to here.

· “The idea of vampire-like psychic forces feeding on humans seems, to say the least, a bit far-fetched.”

It’s only far-fetched if you believe two things: that humans are the end of the food chain and that all there is of reality is perceivable by the human senses.

Why would humans be the end of the food chain? Why would we assume the buck stops here?

Isn’t it somewhat arrogant to assume that something can’t exist just because our eyes can’t see it? That’s a little like the ostrich believing an approaching enemy has ceased to exist because when her head is stuck in the sand, the predator is invisible.

The human eye perceives only a small frequency range of the known electro-magnetic spectrum. We have no first-hand perception of anything that may exist in the ranges of infrared, x-ray, gamma ray, ultraviolet, or bands of energy beyond those that we aren’t even aware of. It’s ethnocentric to think life exists only within the range of visible light. That’s rather like saying you can’t believe life could exist on the trillions of other planets, that life is unique to Earth (just because you this is where you happen to live).

But back to the food-chain. The scriptures of every religion say, virtually or literally, that God/ the gods need humans for food. Every ancient religion I’ve researched required humans to perform blood sacrifice, which usually included human sacrifice. Jehovah, in Leviticus, speaks of “the aroma of the sacrifice” being pleasing to God. I suggest that “aroma” is the suffering of the victim.

The energy in blood is equated with the life force in Chinese medicine: the flow of the Chi is the flow of the blood. Blood sacrifice is required by the gods of every religion because spilling blood is releasing the Chi, the life energy, which they then can assimilate.

Soma is another form (other than blood) that the life force takes, and this, too, is courted by the gods. Maharishi explained Soma as the “ambrosia” or “nectar of the gods” generated in the body during meditation. According to Indian scriptures, it is also engendered through other forms of worship. The gods consume the sacrifice and the gods consume worship as well. Both transfer life energy from the physical dimension to entities dwelling in frequencies beyond the range of visible light.

The only way to call this "far-fetched" is to dismiss every scripture of every culture that’s ever been written as nonsense. You’d also have to trivialize all the evidence of possession and mental illness that exists, and all evidence of psychic phenomena. I realize some people do that, but to me it’s the ostrich again, afraid of looking at what's going on around us and dealing with it.

· “TM works and you know it, or you wouldn’t have done it all those years. I think you’re just bitter.”

If it works, then why am I bitter? What would I have to be bitter about?

I don’t deny I felt benefits from TM in the beginning. It’s what kept me hanging on so many years. But in time I came to see that the initial pure consciousness TM gave me tastes of was being usurped by something else that was eating up my soul. I was losing “me.”

I had a healthy sense of personal self and recognized the subsuming of it as something negative, so I got out. Some of my dearest friends still see losing "the ego" as spiritual progress, and are tightly caught in the jaws of the invisible beast. There is little left of the people they used to be. They've been largely "assimilated." I hope to help them see this someday and, in seeing, make a willful choice that cuts their link with the devic marauders and reclaims their lost personhood. An intentional rescinding of permission will free them. These friends are one big reason I do this writing.

· “I also quit TM and agree with most of what you write, but I never felt drained from meditation.”

That’s not surprising. How much you notice the siphoning depends largely on how much energy or life force you had to begin with. A farmer milking a cow can’t deplete it too badly, or it won’t provide milk. If you trim a plant down to the nubbins, it may not grow again. Likewise, “the gods” don’t take so much life force or Soma away that it is grossly noticeable in most cases. But the milking is real - it's even discussed in the scriptures.

People who meditate many hours a day over a period of years (advanced meditators) are the ones most likely to notice negative changes in their lives. If they weren’t very strong to begin with, the life force depletion shows up over time as physical ailments and other maladies. I know one woman who used to be slightly eccentric when we were meditators together 30-plus years ago. As she continued to meditate, she became full-fledged psychotic. Now she spends her life in and out of mental hospitals. This is an example of how weaker people suffer most from the psychic predation.

People with strong, healthy egos are less likely to surrender their individuality to the gods, in spite of mantra-meditating for years. Such people are more or less “failures” in terms of Indianism standards: they don’t reach that “cosmic” state meditators yearn for, but neither do they transmogrify into zombies. Their strong sense of personal self protects them from being psychologically assimilated.

Assimilation, even more than energy siphoning, is the primary danger I perceive in mantra meditation and Eastern religion. It is also, I expect, the real purpose behind mantra meditation.

When a meditator relinquishes the authorship of action and ceases to identify with his thoughts and desires, he thinks he has reached oneness with the Infinite. In reality, he has abdicated his personhood and placed it on the “freebie shelf,” where outside entities are entitled to pick it up and work through it as their instrument. He now channels their will into this world, having given away personal rights to his body, heart and mind. This is called possession, in my book, and it accounts for the other-worldy charisma of "the enlightened.”

Bronte Baxter

Now here we are more than four years later, and I still don't understand why there has never been a real public reaction. Is it pure fantasy to think that at some point in our history, Americans would have been shocked and furious to learn that our government tortured in our name? Is it beyond us to envision an America in which a government would actually be brought down by such a thing?

Not that I believe that we were ever a nation – or had a government – composed of saints. Our track record on human rights has been at odds with our self-image ever since our ancestors landed on soil that was inconveniently occupied by others. But there was surely a time in the not-so-distant past when a government that defended its right to torture prisoners would have been met by loud and sustained public outrage.

Now it seems the outrage has been replaced by mere uneasiness, and even this is not universal. A year ago, the Pew Research Center reported that when asked if torture can be justified “to gain key information”, only 29% of Americans said “never”. 12% actually said “often” (who are these people??), and the rest were in between. These figures are disheartening, to say the least. I can only make sense of them by believing that they reflect not an endorsement of torture but our own collective fearfulness. Fear causes people to do some pretty terrible things. Fear causes people to look the other way even when they know something unspeakable is being done in their name.

People of faith should not be looking the other way. If fear and the yearning to feel safe lead the public at large to accept the unacceptable, maybe we respond by challenging and expanding the notion of what it means to be “safe”. The old biblical question put it this way: What does it profit you if you gain everything, but lose your own soul?

There are lots of arguments against torture: that it is not effective and results most of the time in bad information; that it will always include the innocent as well as the guilty, simply because of human fallibility; and that its use loses America much credibility in the world’s eyes. But religious people should also be wiling to argue that it is morally wrong, and that it damages our own selves, our own souls. Because torture is morally wrong – like rape, murder and genocide – it should never be accepted as "necessary".

NRCAT (the National Religious Campaign Against Torture) has declared June “Torture Awareness Month”, and congregations of every faith all across the country will display banners that simply say, “Torture is Wrong” or “Torture is a Moral Issue”. I am glad my own congregation will be among them. It is such a strange thing to find ourselves doing -- can you imagine having to proclaim "rape is wrong", or "child abuse is wrong"? But in these strange times, it falls to religious people to do what we can to spread the word. Torture is wrong. Period. Get your congregation to put up a banner.

Title:  Eat Pray Love
Author:  Elizabeth Gilbert
Published:  2006
Author's Website:  Elizabeth Gilbert's Official Website

————————————————————

Summary:

Eat Pray Love is a memoir.  In it, the author (Elizabeth) narrates about her consuming thoughts and life, as she visits Italy, India and Bali to seek the meaning of passion, spirituality and balance.

My View:

When I first started reading this book, the introduction sounded very familiar.  It reminded me very much of a movie that I had watched:  Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane and Sandra Oh.  (Incidently, the movie is also based on a  written memoir of the same name).  As in this book, the movie was also about a gloomy American writer, who was also going through the emotions of a turbulent divorce, and who had also decided to 'take a break from it all' by going to a foreign country, in which case was Tuscany-Italy.  Interesting, I thought.

As with most books, the initial chapters were very exciting.  After all, I was 'getting to know' the main character, in this case which was Elizabeth.  It was comforting to learn that she was as ordinary as anybody.  Just another woman going through life, I thought.  And this excited me.  I love reading about other people's life and what they learn from going through it, and with the charming way that Elizabeth was writing, I thought I was going to fall in love with the book in no time.

But,.... I was wrong.  I wasn't falling in love at all.  In fact, I actually started getting a little bored by the time we reached India.  Somehow, I felt as if the initial spark that lit up the book in the front-end, was beginning to diminish.  Where are you taking me, I kept asking Elizabeth silently in my mind.  Of course, there were moments of awe here and there.  But they seemed to be getting less frequent as I progressed.

By the time we were in Bali, it just felt as if I was suddenly being led by a leash.  It felt as if Elizabeth was writing the "who, what and where" in precise detail (of course from notes and journals that she must have kept through out her trip) and then editing in the emotional side of the events as an 'after thought'.  Somewhere in the book, I had lost the Elizabeth that had initially grasped my interest and excitement. 

Recommendation:

In Australia, this book in on a Top 10 list.  So, I'm sure that it must be catering for some people's taste.  But my personal thoughts are, if you are after a memoir that will inspire you to appreciate the little things in life and to learn from the world around us - this is not the one!

Natural disasters are tragic events that change peoples' lives in so many ways and they are also reminders of the fragile nature of this life. They remind us that we are not immune to sickness and death. They humble us and that is a good thing because being humble helps us not waste the present moment. It also allows us chances to reconnect with humanity and remember that we are apart of a bigger picture than just our immediate sphere of influence.

The Buddhist Blog: Natural Disasters.

Then another person reads aloud the same verse, perhaps in a new translation, perhaps simply a repetition.  - Again you sit and depending on your group, you respond, some groups have you respond with what part of the reading speaks to you, to your personal life - or you simply take those words inside.  

And then the reading is repeated for a third and final time.  And by this time, usually there is some time to speak - to say something about what  has been moving in you during this prayer and meditation - some groups ask you to reflect on how something in the phrase speaks to your community - some have no structure, but just invite you to speak what's been happening for you.

Some months ago a Sister and I began doing lectio divina together -online.  We live in very different places and climates - yet we knew we wanted to do lectio together.  We wanted to recreate the feeling of being in a room together - something that once seemed a huge challenge and yet we've found comes very easily now.  We read the same verse (coordinating that was actually our most challenging piece of this) early in the week, then read it daily or more often, as the week progresses we then email one another as moved.

And the extraordinary thing for me about this is that I find the process truly different - and in many ways more moving than it might be in any other medium.  By the time I'm ready to sit down with my response, I usually have a fairly blank mind.  I've been hearing and feeling the words for several days now - several times I've had some bizarro dreams about them - and I sit and just begin typing.

I find out things about myself that I hadn't expected - I find out things about the words I've read that I never "knew" with my mind.  We happen to be following a New Testament Gospel liturgy, but I think this is infinitely adaptable - to whatever holy words your faith guides you to.  As my Sister said as we were trying to choose "I think it's all the same to God."  Indeed - the Divine speaks, and reading this way, in small deep reading, we are opening ourselves to words not on the page but words written in our hearts and on the face of the universe - in God all things are possible - and surely when we listen to God, the human words are merely props.

I invite you to read in this way.  I invite you to find someone in your life who would share this kind of deep listening and praying with you.  Our group has grown to 6 participants now - we've asked further seekers to create their own group, as we want to be able to really listen to each of us, to be present for each writer as she prays "aloud" with us.  But even just doing this with one person is powerful - in some ways more so than with a larger group - but each reader, listener, voice we've come to find is like a facet of the Divine voice - each response is so different (and yet often there are similarities that surprise).  And often we find that when one or another of us feels closed out of the words - caught in our minds - too busy parsing or hearing old sermons or interpretations to hear the words breathed alive again - the others begin opening a space in the words, to hear anew what they are saying.

Indeed, this is, for me, one of the beautiful ways in which community expands us, challenges us - and reminds us to turn our faces towards the sacred.

- Roger Servin

wanted: one small cave with indoor plumbing, view of the water, wireless and netflix required. sub-let will work as i'm unclear how long i can really last without sushi and the cute boy i made out with in boston last weekend.

urban zen girl has left the zendo...please send incense and chant the heart sutra for her...she's lost her way. i know this crisis of faith will pass. it probably isn't even about faith. i think it's more about feeling like a fool...so in my best wisdom-esque language let it be said:

'i've been such a fool...'

source

I found reading Janet's response to Blue Milk's Feminist Motherhood Meme, so interesting (and funny!), that I decided to do it myself!

1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?

I was a feminist in the womb, probably absorbing a whole lot of second wave feminist literature by osmosis! One of my earliest memories is of gazing at the cover of 'The Female Eunuch' on the bookshelf and wondering why on earth is was so ugly and what did it mean? So feminism was pretty much a given, just the way things were. I understood that I lived in a world where people were racist, sexist, everythingist...but our family was different.

I didn't study feminism, although I had friends doing Women's Studies, so I listened to them talk about theory and how things had moved on since our Mum's times. From this I gained an understanding that feminism was more nuanced now than in the early days. It interested me, but not as much as art, and really there was nothing to kindle any kind of fire because I wasn't disempowered. White, middle class and living in a sub-culture that paid great (lip) service to equality of all kinds.

Feminism was just there in the background.

Motherhood has definitely inspired my current understanding of feminism, particularly as I sit between two worlds, both proclaiming to emancipate women, and yet I find neither (cultures) fully comprehend the demands of motherhood .

But the thing that has kindled the fire in my belly is coming face to face with institutions that are wholeheartedly misogynist and very real situations where women have absolutely no agency and face the worst kinds of emotional and physical abuse. I cannot bear to raise my children in a world in which people (particularly other women) allow such things to happen...and therefore my feminism now is no longer dormant.

2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?

The capacity that we have for love and how motherhood is a great equalizer amongst women. And how it seems to enhance our sensitivities towards others. Tragedies involving children are unbearable, and this is more than just identification with other parents, it is love for human life and a strong desire to protect innocence.

3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?

think I already answered this!

4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?

Well my feminism is fairly ambiguous, and I know that many who wish to tie feminism to a particular cultural context will not be able to bear the idea that I am a feminist at all...think Pamela Bone. So, I inhabit, that lucky world in which I am not wanted by either community! That's ok because thankfully there are heaps of wonderfully hybrid creatures such as myself(!), and this is what gives me hope for my daughter as she grows up and tries to navigate these worlds. I wrote a bit about my kind of feminism here.

Basically, I understand it as a fairness that does not place a burden that is so heavy as to cause injustice or limitations based on power structure, on a person because of their gender. I partially believe in gender roles, in that I think that men should bear the financial responsibility for women and children in their families, regardless of whether the family is traditional or urban. This is because I feel that the physical aspects of pregnancy and child-birth and mothering pre-school children, lactating etc. are so intense that they are work enough in themselves. However, this is flexible and open to negotiation, should a woman be open to it and have alternative ways of managing. The point for me is that every mother should be given the option of being with her children at home in the early years, should she wish to be. And I actually consider this a feminist issue. This is not to say that I don't feel that arrangements can be made in which a child's needs can be met whilst their mother is in the workforce, but I feel that the mother needs to have that option. Because the biological need to be with your child is so strong. For myself, I really do wish to be sheltered from the demands of making a living whilst my kids are pre-schoolers, because I want the option to be their primary care-giver.

Parenting however is a twenty-four seven occupation. I don't believe that a father who comes home from work has finished his job for the day and deserves to be waited on! Parenting is a shared occupation. I feel that whoever is at home most of the time, should make an attempt to get the housework done, the meals made etc, simply because the person is there and able to do so, not because it is written into their genetic code. As a stay-at-home mother I do try to manage this kind of thing. But much of the time it doesn't happen in beautiful 1950's fashion because

a.) I have three children under five and no extended family. If my baby wants to be held all day, or the kids are sick, or we decide to go out, then automatically the house falls apart.

b.) I am still a human being with interests of my own. To function properly and not be consumed by depression, I need to know that I am more than a lactating washerwoman and have time to develop wome of my own interests!

So responsible human interactions to me, means balancing responsibilities(worked out on a nuclear family basis) so that ALL family members have the opportunity to develop as people and feminist motherhood means working to remind the world that our needs as women cannot just be consumed by everyone else's needs.

How does this translate practically?

a.) gently reminding my husband, who comes from a world in which gender roles are wrapped in concrete and understands this as being religiously mandated, that justice is based on individual circumstances. Therefore, trying to run a household like a traditional village woman without the support structure that is created by the women, for each other is not just. Slowly suggesting that the religious perspective is much broader than is understood, and that there is actually a very strong traditional view that housework and cooking is not the sole responsibility of women at all. And consequently showing our children through joint effort at home that the workings of the home are everyone's task and not gender specific. Alhamdulillah, he is very responsive.

b.) Understanding that my children are going to be exposed to a lot of sexist twaddle in the community, so it is imperative that I continue to educate myself and develop strength of character in order to counter it and be self-composed enough to cope. Foster very open communication from an early age, so that all these things can be discussed, so that they understand the differing attitudes of the people around them. Again, bringing everything back to the central facet of justice in faith, self-development in faith, and the difference between faith and dogma. And learning as much as I can about dogma, to see where it actually supports women. Always bringing it back to faith-development so that my reactions are not pure cultural and social responses.

5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?

I feel compromised when I fall into living my socio-cultural pattern, or being pushed into living my husband's cultural pattern, because they rub up against each other in a way that just becomes powerplay. Since feminism is for me very much about liberation of the human spirit, falling into powerplay is the antithesis of this. I sometimes have a sense of failure, but it is usually based on trivia. Because my feminism is connected to Something Greater, there is always an escape and an outlet for transcendence and this in itself is so inspiring that it is always a cause of motivation.

6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?

Of course, it's virtually impossible. To feminist's, I'm quite simply...not one, because I'm a Muslim who hasn't succumbed to cultural imperialism (probably because I'm from the imperial culture!).

To many Muslim's the idea of feminism is the opposite of faith.

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?

Islam involves sacrifice. From a faith perspective, sacrifice can be empowering, but it is a sacrifice that occurs with the person's consent. I don't have a problem with sacrifice as a human being. We must sacrifice. But I resent being told that I must sacrifice simply because I am a woman. In Islam, sacrifice as a mother is empowering because we are taught that it creates God-Conciousness, every sacrifice is rewarded. Breastfeeding a child, is worth staying up all night in prayer. So I don't have a problem reconciling sacrifice with being a feminist.

8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?

I discussed this a bit before. I have a husband who believes in justice for all human beings. Our personalities are shaped by our cultural conditioning. My husband struggles with my feminism, because it is so at odds with the way he has been raised. At the same time he wants to see me feeling empowered and happy. And he realises that I cannot be, by the model offered by his culture, because it is not my own. So he makes a lot of concessions for me, but again, bringing it back to faith, he understands that this is Sunnah (practice of the Prophet Muhammed peace be Upon Him) to be in service to your family and help to make them fell happy and fulfilled.

9.If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?

I'm a partial attachment parent. In that I breastfeed on demand and I co-sleep. This is very challenging. The sheer demand placed on my body overwhelms me at times...and I sometimes yell into the air...my body belongs to me, just to remind myself!

But the benefits outway the negatives.

10.Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?

I definitely think that second wave feminism failed mothers, because of it's rigidity. It still continues to fail mothers and families who are stuck in that mind-set. For me, feminism is simply about maintaining agency and not feeling swallowed by other's needs completely, but it should also be culturally relative. I think that feminism creates the opportunity for women to speak for ourselves about our experiences and to decide for ourselves what we require as mother's rather than being told. And as a Muslim Feminist Mother, this last fact is of paramount importance because everyone, particularly women who cannot understand that a woman could be empowered by the Muslim faith, want to deny us our voice.

Nevertheless, such an architectural feat gives a sense of perspective to the hum-drum pressures of daily life. This great space calls for quiet, contemplation, and reflection. 2007 marked the Centennial Anniversary for the Cathedral. Part of the celebration included the commissioning of liturgical banners by artist Nancy Chinn. You can download a pdf about the banners here. The Cathedral sent out Easter cards featuring Chinn's Easter banner with a quote from Martin Luther superimposed on the image. I thought you might like to take a look. Chinn's banner, as well as Luther's quote, lifts my spirits. In case it's difficult for you to read the quote, Luther says, "Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime."

What's even more interesting is that this uniquely Daoist position is referred to in the opening "chapter" of the Daodejing; easily the most famous set of verses from the entire work. But its position on desire is almost always ignored or misinterpreted.

The lines I'm referring to are:

Thus, constantly free of desire
One observes its wonders
Constantly filled with desire
One observes its manifestations

The overwhelming tendency for many people is to read into this passage a sort of hierarchical dualism. The passage is assumed to privilege the desireless over the desiring, and by extension, the "wonders" (妙; miao) over the "manifestations" (徼 ; jiao). What we get is then a sort of vulgar Platonism, where miao is taken to be "reality" and jiao to be "appearance". This interpretation (which is quite common) implies that being without desire is good (since it connects us to reality) while being with desire is bad (since it traps us in illusions). In translations that favor this approach one often finds the word "only" interpolated, as if to imply the manifestations are "only" or "merely" appearances.

But I don't think this is what the writers of the DDJ are saying. For one thing, in the next section ("Chapter 2") this sort of dualism is deconstructed. Secondly, I think if we examine the chapter without this prejudice against "appearances" and preference for "reality" we will find it is saying something far more radical, namely, that

These two emerge together but differ in name

The unity is said to be the mystery

Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

These lines, which immediately follow the preceding ones, do not suggest a dualism that favors the state of being "without desire" over the state of being "with desire". On the contrary, it notes that "these two emerge together". We should then observe (觀 ; guan) both miao and jiao, without favoring one over the other. If they truly emerge together, than there is no dualism (and hence, no conflict) between desire and non-desire. This is a thundering paradox. It implies that desire and non-desire are intertwined, like the taijitu (or "yin-yang" symbol). This principle of complementarity is alluded to in Chapter 7 of the Daodejing, which notes that the sage "puts himself last yet ends up in front. Isn't it because he is selfless that he can accomplish his own ends?" The way of the Daoist is a double-walk.

But what can this possibly mean, to have desire and non-desire at once? How can we accomplish our own ends by being selfless? I think there is a perfect example in the Zhuangzi:

Woodworker Qing carved a piece of wood and made a bell stand, and when it was finished, everyone who saw it marveled, for it seemed to be the work of gods or spirits. When the marquis of Lu saw it, he asked, "What art is it you have?"

Qing replied, "I am only a craftsman - how would I have any art? There is one thing, however. When I am going to make a bell stand, I never let it wear out my energy. I always fast in order to still my mind. When I have fasted for three days, I no longer have any thought of congratulations or rewards, of titles or stipends. When I have fasted for five days, I no longer have any thought of praise or blame, of skill or clumsiness. And when I have fasted for seven days, I am so still that I forget I have four limbs and a form and body. By that time, the ruler and his court no longer exist for me. My skill is concentrated and all outside distractions fade away.

After that, I go into the mountain forest and examine the Heavenly nature of the trees. If I find one of superlative form, and I can see a bell stand there, I put my hand to the job of carving; if not, I let it go. This way I am simply matching up `Heaven' with `Heaven.' That's probably the reason that people wonder if the results were not made by spirits."

In this story, Qing clearly spends a lot of time purifying himself of desire for reward or recognition. It is only when his heart-mind is entirely purified that he can create the bell stand. But Qing still desires to make something! He still has the intention to go out and carve a bell stand, and it is precisely to fulfill this intention that he becomes intentionless. Non-desire occurs against the background of desire; desire occurs against the background of non-desire.

What we have here is not a purely ascetic path, but a way of desiring that is not predicated on possession and control. Note that Qing does not objectify the wood as a means to the further end of fame and fortune. Nor does he seek to impose a pre-arranged form on inert matter. Instead, he empties himself so he can become fully receptive to the potential of the wood ("matching Heaven with Heaven"). By leaving behind both presuppositions and coercion, Qing is able to align with the situation and bring forth immeasurable beauty. Only by becoming utterly selfless and empty is he able to spontaneously realize his goals.

The point is not to simply annihilate the will, but to harmonize it with circumstances and thereby to attain mastery. It is a mastery that can only be achieved through yielding, a mastery that does not "master" in the sense of outward domination. It is a gentle way, emphasizing yin but always in the context of yang.

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (ANS) -- It’s a tragedy that Cheryl Moss Tyler’s book “And You Invited Me In” would be considered controversial in most conservative evangelical circles.