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2021-12-31T09:35:56-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Why Not Become Fire: A Meditation for New Year’s Eve

Last updated on: December 31, 2021 at 9:35 am By James Ford

Today is the last day of the year of our Lord 2021. I’m not going to say good riddance. Well. At least not without some qualification. For many of us it’s been hard. No doubt. And there’s not a lot of evidence it’s going to get better any time soon. But. And. In the waning hours of 2021, I find my heart going back to Mary Oliver’s poem The Buddha’s Last Instructions. “Make of yourself a light” said... Read more

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2021-12-29T09:26:48-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Tiniest Recollection of the Mad Monk

Last updated on: December 29, 2021 at 9:26 am By James Ford

It’s the eve of the eve of a new year. At my age with little time to squander, nonetheless I have to say about 2021, goodbye, and good riddance. Although I am not particularly sanguine about how 2022 will shape up. People like to note it is the year, after all, that the film Soylent Green takes place. And, the 30th of December in 1916, that would be 105 years ago today Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was murdered. Considering... Read more

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2021-12-29T08:12:22-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

HELLO GOODBYE: Living in the Kali Yuga with a Little Help from the Beatles

Last updated on: December 29, 2021 at 8:12 am By James Ford

“Hello Goodbye” Living in the Kali Yuga with a Little Help from the Beatles Silvio Nardoni (My friend Silvio Nardoni is a Unitarian Universalist minister as well as a practicing attorney. He shared this with me and I thought it a perfect New Year’s reflection. I asked for permission to share it, and he graciously agreed.) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . . .” — Charles Dickens I’m fortunate to... Read more

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2021-12-28T07:52:44-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Bodhisattva Fu’s Poems on the Four States

Last updated on: December 28, 2021 at 7:52 am By James Ford

四相詩 Poems on the Four States Bu Fu-Ta-shih ［傅大士］ (497–569) Fu Ta-shih was a householder, whose teachings and actions led him to be revered as an incarnation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya. Birth Relying upon the ovum, consciousness arises, birth arises from love and desire. In a time now past he grew up, today he returns as a child. The stars follow the cycle of human life, red lips open for milk. Because we are deluded to our true Dharma nature,... Read more

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2021-12-27T12:45:02-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Feast for John the Beloved

Last updated on: December 27, 2021 at 12:45 pm By James Ford

Today, the 27th of December the Roman and Anglican churches mark out as a feast for John the disciple of Jesus, sometimes called the Apostle, sometimes the Evangelist, sometimes the Beloved. The Orthodox celebrate his life in September. I cannot think of him without thinking of John the Revelator… As with all the apostles very little is really known about John. Maybe he was originally with Jesus as another disciple of John the Baptist. Maybe he was... Read more

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2021-12-26T16:22:41-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Day After Christmas

Last updated on: December 26, 2021 at 4:22 pm By James Ford

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS A Meditation on What Comes Next James Ishmael Ford Here we are. The day after Christmas. With a cup of coffee in hand I turned to the Associated Press newsfeed. The lead story this morning was that Desmond Tutu, retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, hero of the anti-apartheid movement, leader of the right for women to be ordained in his church, LGBTQ rights activist, ecological justice activist, Nobel laureate, really a life-long and... Read more

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2021-12-25T09:47:03-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Christmas Letter, 2021

Last updated on: December 25, 2021 at 9:47 am By James Ford

I see how I wrote a report for Christmas 2017. A sort of Christmas letter. It seems a good time to add an update. Overdue even, perhaps. Jan & I continue to live in Long Beach, California. Christmas Eve began with a heavy rain storm. Something good considering we’ve been in drought conditions long enough to begin to think this is more likely climate change. And for us that’s going to be a strong flirtation with desertification. Later... Read more

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2021-12-24T07:37:29-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Meditation for Christmas Eve

Last updated on: December 24, 2021 at 7:37 am By James Ford

Last year I gathered a couple of my favorite Christmas poems together. They’re still my favorites. As are those illustrations from Everett Patterson and Fritz Eichenberg. The first of the poems is by the mid twentieth century Unitarian Universalist minister Sophia Lyon Fahs. For so the children come And so they have been coming. Always in the same way they come born of the seed of man and woman. No angels herald their beginnings. No prophets predict... Read more

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2021-12-23T15:28:50-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Hindu Appreciation of Christmas

Last updated on: December 23, 2021 at 3:28 pm By James Ford

Because I am working on a writing project I have become obsessed with a small factoid that is completely unrelated to the subject of my writing. Specifically where does the term “Christ Consciousness” come from? I kind of assumed it came from Theosophy. And it might, although a search of pdfs of Madam Blavatsky’s two major works does not show it. A friend found a chapter heading in a book by Sumner Ellis, a Universalist minster published in 1887 that... Read more

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2021-12-22T12:15:01-08:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Eighteen Zen Koans from the Western Tradition

Last updated on: December 22, 2021 at 12:15 pm By James Ford

I’m a life long student of the koan way. It has given me the contours of the formal part of my interior life. And, I remain endlessly grateful. I’m also interested in how we might find koans outside of the formal canon, the received cases enshrined in the great anthologies and within the various schools of koan introspection. So, I was pleased when a friend pointed me to a draft copy of a koan curriculum for Western... Read more

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