Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

I've just finished reading The End of Faith , by Sam Harris, which I picked up in a bookstore on Dupont Circle while traveling on business in DC last week. Sam Harris is apparently a philosophy grad who is getting a Ph .D. in neuroscience, "studying the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty," according to the back cover. He writes an impressive book, I must say. Since I am married to an agnostic who is the son of an agnostic, I figure it behooves me to pay attention to the opposition, even if I start off as a hard sell. The basic tenet of the book, as I surmise, is that religion -- any religion -- that cannot prove its claims scientifically has no claim to anyone's belief. Harris also claims (correctly) that religion has become an inappropriate subject for criticism in the modern world ... a taboo subject, particularly as far as Islam goes (he presents a rather devastating summary of Islamic beliefs, which I am not qualified to critique). And ...

Calendar-wise, it's spring. In terms of temperature, it's spring (68 degrees today, 74 tomorrow, in the high 60s or low 70s for the extended forecast). The frost/freeze tables have me hamstrung. The popular wisdom I absorbed from my granny is that you never, never plant outside until May 15th. She was a great storyteller, and one story she loved to tell was the one about Pop- Pop's planting 60 tomato plants on the 20 th of April, and how they perished in a late-season snowstorm. But that was before global warming, I guess. The frost/freeze tables I consulted today suggested that our last freeze will probably occur by April 15th. This would not be an issue, were the morning-glory babies not taking over my basement. I started them on March 15th, under lights, and they're now a foot tall, curling around each other and looking somewhere, anywhere, for an anchor to latch onto. I really want to plant them outside . In the end, it's a judgment call, just like when I ...

I've just finished reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ , his comparison of Buddhism and Christianity. What a delight it was -- I want to read more of his work. I felt elevated to a new plane of ecumenism! I've added a new link to the Plum Village Practice Center, where I got the photograph to the right. I'll be doing a lot more reading on Buddhism. I know I have lots to learn to learn from all religious traditions. Well, maybe not all. Thanks to MadPriest for his post on 3/29, alerting us to more words of wisdom spoken by my own personal nemesis. Pastor Rick Warren's enlightened stance on LGBT issues was quoted in the Monitor , published in Uganda, in the issue for that same day. I looked it up in Westlaw, and I think it's worth quoting in full (just for that full, rancid, fundamentalist flavor): Famed American pastor, Dr Rick Warren has said he supports the decision by Ugandan bishops to boycott the forthcoming Lamebth [ sic] ...

I have a good friend at work who has just introduced me to Thich Nhat Hanh -- his books, I mean, though I wouldn't mind meeting him in person. I have read only one so far: Living Buddha, Living Christ. I found it lucidly written and valuable for its comparison of Buddhism and Christianity. It has made me want to read more on Buddhism. One especially thought-provoking excerpt is below: "Some waves on the ocean are high and some are low. Waves appear to be born and to die. But if we look more deeply, we see that the waves, although coming and going, are also water, which is always there. Notions like high and low, birth and death can be applied to waves, but water is free of such distinctions. Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears." (p. 138) In a Christian context, if I were able to remember , every minute , that I am God's beloved child, that he is never separated from me, that I...

After many years of attending an anemic Easter Vigil, I finally understand what it's all about (proving that it's never too late to learn). Our Easter Vigil started after dark. The Rector appeared on the church porch with a medium-sized pyrex bowl, into which she proceeded to pour a large box of epsom salts. I was perplexed, standing in the back of the nave with the choir -- I had never seen this before. Into the bowl she then poured rubbing alcohol. Moving back from the bowl, she set it afire with a barbecue lighter. Wow! The flames rose up. It was our Easter fire. The Rector blessed it and lit the Paschal Candle from it. Then she extinguished the bowl by putting on its lid, entered the church, and began the Exsultet. As we processed down the aisle, the person on the end of every pew lit a candle from the Paschal Candle, then passing the flame to his neighbor's candle. The first half of the service, the reading of lessons (including my favorite, "The Valley of Dry...

Today I reached out on email to two women who were my close friends at my old church, asking after their families, giving them the news of my own, and wishing them a blessed Easter. It was a chatty little note, with a little news from my new parish mixed in. I thought it was a cordial note. I suggested lunch some Saturday. I got back, "Happy Easter" from both of them. One line, more or less, including good wishes for my new life. I guess this is what it feels like to be thrown under the bus. I guess it's the price for being honest about what I saw happening at the Church on the Pike. But sending that letter to my bishop was (as the commercial says).... priceless.

Five years ago today I sat on my bed and watched the "Shock and Awe" campaign of the U.S. military against Saddam Hussein. Against the night sky over Baghdad, fatal blooms of yellow and orange erupted as we dropped bunker-busters. Take that, Saddam! And we were going to find his weapons of mass destruction and put him out of business, not to mention out of the presidential palace(s). It didn't quite work out that way. The WMDs were MIA. But it was OK, because we knew anyway that Saddam had been in cahoots with Al Qaeda, right? That Al Qaeda had been in contact with him prior to 9/11? Nope, wrong again. We had it all wrong from the beginning. That's the Bush administration: often wrong, but never in doubt. And people on both sides are still dying. Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.