Poem of the Month  ~  February 2010What a month!  Ground Hog’s Day, Mardi Gras, Purim, Chinese New Year!  Wow!  A veritable explosion of carnival energy!  A while back some famous dudes, wrote:      “Let your freak flag fly!”   So go on…enjoy those marvelous eccentricities in ...

This past week, many of us have had sleepless nights over the horrors in Haiti.   This poem by Gary Snyder has arisen in my mind as I've considered personal and communal responses.  For the past 15 years, I have lived my life to the rhythm of this poem; do my spiritual tune-ups to the calibration of it.   For those who ...

Some of you may remember a post I made in May of this past year called Douglas firs were our Sanctuary. It was about a remarkable  conversation with a friend who was terminally ill and choosing to hasten her death in accordance with the Oregon Death with Dignity Act of 1997.   What I didn’t put in that first post, ...

Outwitted He drew a circle that shut me out - Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout But love and I had the will to win We drew a circle and drew him in.                      -- Edwin Markham The walls of human understanding have various purposes, ...

''I do not see this heart thing as abstract or esoteric.  Getting to, living in, healing from, being guided through the heart is an actual state that can be achieved. But it is not a state of mind.   It is not an attitude, or an affirmation.  Rather it is a state of being. The mind is the servant of the state of being in the ...

  two letters universes of difference   how did we get here? has this happened in other worlds or only ours?   what kind of quirky, convoluted Mind designed us to think we're so separate we can make stuff like this up? legal or illegal words gone amuck designing policy dividing not only families but psyches ...

''Half of the earth is water; our body is three-quarters water. Water represents the interface between the 4th dimension in which we live and the 5th dimensional sphere of our soul. Many studies have shown subtle effects of healers upon hydrogen bonding and infrared absorption of water. None of these scientific studies can compare with the ...

I had occasion to preach in our seminary's chapel today.  It is Monday in Holy Week in our Christian tradition.  This past Sunday we celebrated Jesus' entry into Jerusalem during our Palm Sunday service and this week we retell the stories about his last days before his crucifixion on Good Friday.  The story we read ...

   Sadu in the Garden  On Saturday February 7, 2009 a massive bushfire swept through the picturesque town of Marysville in Victoria, Australia.  The bushfires, annual by nature, have spread over a huge region and although now are considered contained have been especially devastating this year, causing at least 209 ...

Just came across an interesting site, Future  Primitive.  Out of the box thinkers are interviewed and the interviews are archived.  Here are the categories of topics in this archive: Destiny in the Stars (3) Gaialogues (66) Organic Light (1) Rapture & Revolution (4) Sacred Cows (5) World Psychedelic Forum ...

The atrocity at Wal-Mart this weekend left most of us stunned and somehow defensive.  'I wouldn't have pushed by the man...or his co-workers who were trying to help.....' It reminds me how upon hearing the story of St. Peter betraying Jesus with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane as a child I thought, 'I would never deny Jesus like Peter ...

This is part 2 in a series in re-defining giving. Part 3 will be some creative small-dollar but high value gifting concepts, websites, stories.  It will be posted November 26.   Part 1 discussed how cross pollination between the for-profit/donor sector and the non-profit/charity sector needs to be more evident. This is a ...

  I think these are actually geese and not 'dox', but you get the picture. If one plans to have baby-dox it's easier to have a para-dox but only because it takes an entire village to raise them.   Here's the real puzzle: If a man raised in foreign places can become president of these united states why can't all people in love ...

This post is part of a synchroblog of Christian bloggers writing this month about leadership, just in time for the election.   In thinking about this post, my mind ranged over all the leadership books I've read, trainings and team work that I've had the privilege to participate in over the 30 years in the world of work. In ...

“Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.”  Guillaume Apollinaire (French poet and critic who helped to direct poetry into unexplored channels, 1880-1918) The Hindu Goddess of Death and Destruction, Kali I've been reluctant to bring politics into the Virtual ...

This photo journal of Faith (or Will Power) the dog made my heart smile and weep at the same time. Make sure to scroll down the page of the above link to see all the photos. NOTE: See comment on this post--this little dog's name is actually 'Faith'... Here's just one photo from this montage... Check the journal out--it's worth it. I ...

As I live into the pilgrimage of Patti Digh's 37 days exercise on what we might be experiencing if indeed we had 'only' 37 days to live, I've found myself going through layers of experience.  I'm dreaming a lot, and not remembering any of them. I'm all over the place in my daily life--content, anxious, exasperated with myself, feeling sick in ...

Remarkable photo journal of 'walking-beside' by Phillip Toledano and his 98 year old father.  

Technorati Tags: relgious images,spirituality,comparative theology Twelve years ago or more I was a chaplain at a Veterans Hospital in Colorado.  I worked in the substance abuse and psychiatric units.  It was one of the favorite jobs of my lifetime thus far.  The guys (mostly guys) were respectful, easy to work with ...

Not that any of us thought he was wrong... I woke up this morning after a week of frustrating events, feeling like I was the main source of problems in my (read: 'the') world.  I felt like I'd alienated important relationships, had a disturbing set of dreams, failed at work, failed at parenthood, failed at being able to move steadily towards ...