Category Archives: Christianity
Perfume from a Locked Room
I was going to the gym this evening when snow started falling, the brisk wind causing white-outs out my study window. We are expecting 5 – 8 inches of spring snow by morning. I decided to stay in and write. … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, creativity, culture, History, memoirs, philosophy, Photography, religion, spirituality, Writers
Tagged Andalusia, art, Beauty, creativity, duende, Federico Garcia Lorca, Granada, Holy Week, literature, pain, Poetry, Roman Catholicism, semana santa, Spain, Spanish art, Spanish literature, suffering, wabi, wabi-sabi, Zen
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Exiled to Heaven
Coming to America was like dying and being reborn in the Tusita heavens. In Buddhist mythology, people who have progressed towards enlightenment went to the Tusita realm where they could continue practicing until they reached enlightenment. There, as in heaven … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, culture, memoirs, philosophy, religion, spirituality
Tagged Buddhism, Buddhist, humanism, Lineages, New Jersey, New York City, Philippines, philosophy, pragmatism, psychology, Religion and Spirituality, Ruth Denison
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A Cathedral in Time
For this time in the morning I sit and let purpose and reason take a pause. Let the world go on without me. Just this bit of time. Continue reading
Posted in Buddhism, Christianity, creativity, culture, Judaism, memoirs, Other, philosophy, psychology, religion, social media, spirituality, Writers
Tagged Buddhism, finger pointing at the moon, Fresh Air, Judith Shulevitz, memoirs, New Republic, philosophy, practice, religion, Sabbath, Shabbat, Terry Gross, Zen
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On Books and Scriptures
I recently started Shaye J.D. Cohen’s iTunes U course, “Culture and Belief 23: The Hebrew Scriptures in Judaism and Christianity.” Required reading is The Jewish Study Bible from Oxford University Press so being the compliant student I ordered the book. … Continue reading
Posted in Buddhism, Christianity, culture, History, Judaism, memoirs, Other, philosophy, religion, spirituality
Tagged Apostles Creed, archaeology, belief, Bible, biblical scholarship, books, Christianity, Dead Sea Scrolls, faith, Judaism, King James Version, Masoretic, Nag Hammadi, Pali Text Society, reading, religion, scriptures, Septuagint, study, translation
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Awe and Mystery: The Religious Experience
Nothing has changed so much and remained unchanged as the essentials of my experience with religion and the sacred in human experience. I look back and see the child I was half a century ago, today see the aging man … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, culture, Greece, memoirs, Other, philosophy, psychology, religion, spirituality, Travel, Writers
Tagged Aglipay, Catholic, Catholic Church, childhood, God, Iglesia Filipina Independiente, memoirs, Philippine Independent Church, Philippines, Protestantism, religion, religious experience, sacred, Second Vatican Council
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Desert in Spiritual Quest
Long before I heard about the Desert Fathers of the 3rd and 4th centuries in Christian Egypt and Syria, desert had come to symbolize one of my earliest religious experiences. As a child my inner world centered on the high … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, culture, Hinduism, memoirs, philosophy, psychology, religion, spirituality
Tagged asceticism, Christianity, desert, Egyptian Christianity, Hinduism, mysticism, philosophy, religion, spirituality
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Religion – A View of a Beautiful, Terrifying World
It is not insanity that the most joyous fete in the Christian world comes in the very midst of dark, cold winter. As Christmas comes once again to North America, a predominantly Christian country caught in the paradox of science … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, creativity, culture, philosophy, religion, spirituality
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Iloilo circa 1955, the Days before Christmas
I am sure other people today, both in the Philippines and in the U.S., have a store of Christmas and New Year memories from which they re-create the celebration of these early winter holidays year after year. I do. Years … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, culture, Filipino, Filipino cuisine, Food, History, memoirs, psychology, religion
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Leonard Shlain’s The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
Separating human qualities between feminine and masculine sounds so old hat in 2011 so when I came across Leonard Shlain’s book, The Alphabet and the Goddess, my first impulse was to pass it over. We’re a long ways from the … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, culture, Hinduism, memoirs, philosophy, religion, Writers
Tagged Calvin, Catholicism, Leonard Shlain, Luther, Protestant Reformation, Protestantism
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Digitization Is Fundamental Change
I’ll be 65 in a couple of months. I’m amazed at the time and experience that have sifted through my fingers in just the last forty years, from those late teen years when self-consciousness began and I began to be … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, creativity, culture, Judaism, philosophy, psychology, religion
Tagged British Museum, Library of Congress, philosophy, Western world
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