Zen Master Hui Re’s Truth

The truth you seek is your own true mind, an awakened mind is a one without confines. The truth is not the knowledge you now possess, nor the religious doctrines that you profess. It’s not that rigid religious culture, or some shallow mystical experience. Your awakened mind – the true nature – does not seem to exist. There is no way to see the real truth, though it has never left you for an instant. – A Zen Master Hui Re, quote re: Truth.

A Voluntary Euthanasian Ethic

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I just found an old essay living an an even older hard drive that has been buried under a dusty pile of books in the attic. I wrote this essay way back in January of 2004. The topic: Voluntary Euthanasia. I’m not even sure I still hold the same views and opinions that I held concerning Euthanasia, but it is interesting to re-read old personal expressions and gauge just how much one’s expression has changed over time.

Note: My style has improved over the years too. I have neither the energy, nor the desire to edit the following essay properly, so it appears just as I wrote in 2004. Do forgive my past addiction to ellipses, mechanical verbiage, making up words and general wordiness. I exhaust myself reading myself in my former style. I apologize in advance. Read more…

Classical Unitarian Christianity

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I recently had to explain the title “Unitarian Universalist Christian.” It was an interesting conversation, to be sure, and I found myself explaining both classical expressions of Unitarianism (think early American, New England expressions of the faith) and more contemporary developments within the Unitarian Universalist Association (think 1961 merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America). Personally, I identify with aspects of both these days. I deeply appreciate elements of the classical expression, and I resonate with much that is advanced by the contemporary iteration as a result of my growing understanding of postmodernism, human religiousness, sacred lit, culture, and the importance of myth. Then again, I’m always curious and changing and growing and evolving too, and perhaps that’s the main source of the aforementioned resonance. Read more…

Jackass Starves Between Two Haystacks

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You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor, right? It’s a philosophical concept that when used judiciously is supposed to facilitate rational decision making in situations wherein two or more choices or theories or whatever present themselves as competing alternatives. Basically, Occam’s Razor advances the idea that the less complicated explanation or action is the best one. There is no need, according to this principle, to seek a more complicated answer if a simpler one indeed exists. Sounds pretty solid, right? Well, it’s supposed to be simple, but some seem incessant on making a lot of things more complicated than they need be. Why? Who really knows?!? Read more…

The Better Man

So, which is the better man? The religious man who fulfills ethical duties to ward off fears planted within him by a sidewalk preacher’s threats of eternal damnation, in effort to save himself, or the non-religious man who fulfills ethical duties under the power of his own free will and thought-laden conscience because he is compelled to satisfy what he perceives to be his personal responsibilities? Which of the two is truly the better man?

Your $80 NFL Team Jersey

I have had more than a few Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys in my lifetime. My son has one now. He has a Ben Roethlisberger jersey with a big number “7″ on it. You probably have a favorite NFL Team Jersey in your closet too. Question: How would you like to sew NFL Team Jerseys, all day long, in an assembly line (with a production goal set at 255 jerseys per hour), for .10 cents a piece, or .72 cents an hour? Seriously? We should all read about the way Reebok and the NFL pay their workers to sew their $80 team jerseys. You can do so here: Salvadoran Women Workers Speak Out on Sewing Peyton Manning Jerseys.

What the World Eats

Fascinating and sobering reading: “Come see What The World Eats. A few years ago photographer Peter Menzel and his wife Faith D’Aluisio started to photograph what family’s around the globe eat and wrote down what their weekly expenditure is. In 2005 they published an award winning book called Hungry Planet: What The World Eats.” Be sure to compare the weekly expenditure numbers of The Revis family of North Carolina to the Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp in Chad. It’s amazing what the world eats!

Is Angiogenesis the Cure for Cancer?

Angiogenesis. Have you ever heard the term? You will! The Angiogenesis Foundation explains it like this: “Angiogenesis, the growth of new capillary blood vessels in the body, is an important natural process in the body used for healing and reproduction.” It turns out that when the human body’s control of Angiogenesis is out of whack problems like cancer, skin diseases, age-related blindness, diabetic ulcers, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and many others occur. Is this a cure for cancer? We can only hope!

Unpublished Work by J.D. Salinger?

So, does J.D. Salinger – literary recluse and author of The Catcher in the Rye – really have at least 15 unpublished books that have been locked in a safe at his home? If there really is a trove of unpublished work in Salinger’s safe, it should be left unpublished. J.D. Salinger did say “Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.” I think his perspective should be honored in his death. J.D. Salinger died January 27, 2010.

The Great Emerging Church Failure

There seems to be a lot of posts popping up concerning the emerging church these days. The majority of these opinions concern a perceived failure of the conversation or movement or whatever you wish to call it.

Most of the posts I have read recently seem to say that the Emerging Church (Emergent/Emergence) has gone too far, theologically speaking. Read more…

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