It Breaks the Heart

Will Shetterly posted this picture he found on the web. I'm hoping it was photoshopped. I fear it is not...

Will titled it "How Class War Works."

I'm not positive, although that certainly is part of it...

I'm sure the casual cruelty of children also plays into it.

And this astonishing human ability to separate ourselves from others, to not see how deeply we are in fact connected, to miss that when one of us is hungry, the world cries out in pain. Deaf to it all...

I fear this image will seep into my own wounds and will haunt my dreams for some time to come...

Perhaps that's not a bad thing.

Agnes Reveals the Hand of God

Josaphat: My Favorite Christian Saint

On this day in the Western Church's calendar and for those of the Eastern Church who follow the revised Julian calendar, this is the feast of Sts Barlaam and Josaphat. (Those stubborn Easterns who continue to use the Julian calendar observe the feast on 26th of August.)

This is my favorite Christian holiday.

Sadly, this feast isn't observed in the West, anymore. And I suspect it isn't celebrated by many in the East, either.

The story of the prince Josaphat and his conversion to the true faith through the guidance of the hermit Barlaam appears in the West in the eleventh century, apparently composed by the monk Euthymios, although attributed to the seventh century John of Damascus. In fact the story is quite a bit older than either the eleventh or seventh centuries. And more recent, as well. The story pops up all over the place, from the Golden Legend to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. It is what one may call a classic.

by the nineteenth century scholars realized the true source of the story.

The name Josaphat derived ultimately from the Sanskrit and means bodhisattva, "enlightenment being."

And they figured out the story, through some interesting turns, was really that of the Buddha.

You gotta love it.

Well, I do...

An Open Letter to Congressman Patrick Kennedy

I just sent the following letter to our Congressman, Representative Patrick Kennedy, copying it to the Providence Journal. I would like to add, if you live in the greater Providence area and are looking for a church home, please feel free to investigate whether we might be that best place for you to grow deep and from which to engage the world with mercy and in quest of justice.

26 November 2009

The Reverend James Ishmael Ford

First Unitarian Church

Providence, Rhode Island

The Honorable Patrick Kennedy

United States Representative

1^st District, Rhode Island

Dear Representative Kennedy,

I am under the impression you may be church shopping.

On behalf of the First Unitarian Church of Providence, I would like to invite you to consider visiting with us to see if this might not be your spiritual home.

I am a longtime admirer of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly its traditions of a profound spirituality and, by its best lights, a commitment to human dignity and justice.

Our liberal religious spirituality is based upon a profound respect for the individual while also knowing we are all woven out of each other and the world in a wondrous web of interdependence.

Based upon this insight we are also committed to human dignity and justice.

We share with the Catholic Church a commitment to racial justice and to the defense of immigrants, the homeless, the poor and others who suffer at the hands of the powerful and indifferent.

However, by our best lights, we have engaged some the great questions in somewhat different ways. We fiercely uphold the rights of women; in fact we have ordained women to our ministry since the middle of the nineteenth century. And even knowing there is a tragic element involved, as an Association we defend a woman’s right to choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term. Similarly, as an Association, we uphold the worth and dignity of bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgendered people, seeking full civil rights for BGLT people, including marriage equality.

The First Unitarian Church in Providence is the third oldest congregation in the city. It has a long history of seeking a spirituality grounded within our lived lives, and manifested through acts of mercy and justice.

We are located at the corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets. I’ve loved that since I came to serve among these good people and saw the signs. “Benefit” and “benevolent” speaks of what our hope to be is, and often of who we are.

We welcome you and your family to visit at anytime, and to see if we might not be your spiritual home.

Yours, standing on the side of Love,

James

The Reverend James Ishmael Ford

A Thanksgiving Meditation

Some years back the Unitarian Universalist annual denominational General Assembly took place in Portland, Oregon. After it ended Jan & I took a rental car and drove north through Seattle across the border to Vancouver, then on a ferry west to Vancouver Island and Victoria, back down on another ferry to the US and a revisit to Seattle before finally flying home.

Among the vivid images of that trip maybe the most vivid was when we were in Vancouver. We’d found their Chinatown and were wandering through the shops; apparently there’s some common source for tourist gewgaws, as the shops had much of what you’ll find in San Francisco’s or even Boston’s Chinatown stores. But we kept our eyes open for something a bit different.

And we ended up in a kitchenware shop. We were looking at this and that when I saw a lovely wooden kitchen spoon. Now, I’d wanted a wooden spoon for a while, but just had never gotten around to purchasing it. The spoons were displayed in a large vase like container, maybe nine or ten sticking out like wooden roses in a pot. I peered closely at them and saw one in particular had a bit of discoloration along the grain in the handle. I pulled it out and held it for heft, tried the stirring motion and declared to all who were present, well, Jan, “This is the one!”

“The one what?” asked Jan. “Why the wooden spoon I’ve been seeking for so long,” I replied feeling as if I’d found Excalibur. I gave my spoon, it was now my spoon, a sword like twirl in the air. “Oh,” said Jan.

Apparently nothing else caught either of our imaginations. So we got on line. In front of us were what looked to be a family, two older people and two younger somewhere between the end of High School or a bit beyond. What caused them to stick in my memory was that they all appeared to be speed freaks. That is they all; every blessed one of them appeared to be out of their minds high on some sort of speed drug.

They visibly twitched. They spoke rapidly and disjointedly, and not like I do, I mean really, really over the top. When they got to the register there was of course considerable confusion, not just of language, but also of what they were trying to purchase, its price, and how to close the deal.

In the snap of a finger my mood switched from ecstasy to a deep sadness.

Now, some years later, I still have that spoon. I don’t give it the sword twirl anymore. Well, hardly ever. But when I picked it up to stir some oatmeal yesterday, I had a small flash of memories from our trip, of how much I love Jan, of how sad life can be for some people, and with that and the smell of the oatmeal I found myself drawn back to this moment, the one right now, realizing all those things layered as part of the moment.

And I felt a sense of thanksgiving.

Now, this is the season within our culture when we’re called to remember each other and life itself and how precious it is.

And of course, how fragile.

It is time for gratitude, but open-eyed gratitude. Our American holiday is shadowed by the fact the Native peoples who welcomed the Pilgrims but would soon discover it was a mistake, sadness as well as joy. But this is something important. That bittersweet quality is in my opinion what is so powerful about this season.

This is a Harvest festival we’re about. It is about getting enough food in, hopefully, to withstand the harsh winter ahead. There are versions around the globe somewhere roughly at this time, or its southern hemisphere equivalent six months out. Think of the western Earth centered Lammas. Or those festivals rooted in these ancient traditions such as the German Octoberfest or the Transylvanian Harvest festivals.

And this is very much a kitchen festival, a time for food, a time for friendship, a time to cherish all that which we are fortunate enough to have.

That wooden spoon is sitting with other utensils in a pot in the kitchen. Today it'll be getting a bit of a workout. And I know as I grab it, and if no one is around, perhaps swirl it in the air just once before getting to work, I'll think, briefly, just in a heartbeat, of these things.

And I'm pretty sure it'll be hard not to be grateful.

Thinking About Michael Haederle's "Dharma Wars"

There's been quite the brouhaha in the Buddhist blogosphere about Zenshin Michael Haederle’s article Dharma Wars in the latest issue of Tricycle, the first of the national Buddhist glossies.

There have been some significant rejoinders to the article. I think Enlightenment Ward and the Buddhist Blog the most on point, so far.

I have a walk on part in the article, and so feel I have a dog in this hunt. And so some of my own thoughts...

Mr Haederle's thesis is that there is a significant amount of misinformation as well as harsh and harmful speech within the Buddhist blogosphere.

I agree.

Sadly, I believe Mr Haederle, a professional journalist as well as a long time Zen practitioner, and surprisingly to me, used ill chosen examples for his illustrations, distracting readers from his larger point.

He led off with the story of allegations that a Zen teacher had fabricated his authorizations. I thought this an example of what is good about the Buddhist blogosphere. Real issues were raised, important ones for people seeking real Zen teachers.

But Michael Haederle used this as an example of incivility, at least as I read it, and that missed the whole point, again, as I saw it.

Although this example in fact shows where some of the weaknesses of the Buddhist blogosphere lay.

The various blog entries say what they say. In my opinion when someone starts a blog they assume some responsibility, at the very least, for accuracy. And I think most who blog feel that impulse, and largely try to tell the truth as best they discern it. It doesn't mean they're right. But they do seem by my read to try. The responsible next step, of course, is to let those charged respond. One chose not to. The other did, posting for a time his documentation. It has since apparently been taken down. Based on how they responded and with what they responded, people are free to draw conclusions.

The real ugliness usually comes in the comments sections of the blogs. Here people seem to feel free to say whatever they wish without regard for civility or, and this is the most important part, any care for accuracy. I was quoted regarding where I think people often seem to get their information. I was thinking of blog comments when I spoke. I regret seeing my crude remark in print, but not the point. The comments section that followed the Santa Monica based Zen teacher Brad Warner's blog for some time was the most extreme example I can think of. The comments were frequently so vile that even one of the more in your face writers in the Buddhist blogosphere found it too much and finally shut down the comments.*

Similarly I felt Mr Haederle confused the issues around the Venerable Warner's public attacks on the Salt Lake City based Zen teacher Genpo Merzel. One can question Brad Warner's choice of words. I do. But he also raised real questions about the Venerable Merzel's psycho-spiritual program Big Mind, particularly its claims of guaranteeing Zen enlightenment experiences, as well as the venerable's association with the Frederick Lenz Foundation, an organization that appears to exist to rehabilitate a minor cult figure from the late twentieth century through lavish expenditures on more main stream Buddhist activities.

This last point has been a sparker for one of the blogosophere's major problems, as I see it. Conspiracy theories. The Frederick Lenz Foundation is a supporter of Tricycle. And many other worthy causes.

People do love to go for the conspiracy. I received a couple of notes myself accusing me as an interviewee for the article as part of a larger conspiracy - to what purpose I wasn't precisely sure. But I think it had to do with destroying the Buddhist blogosphere in order to sustain the sagging sales of the Buddhist glossy magazines...

There are other examples of where Mr Haederle went wrong in his article, but I think I've made my point.

Now my interests are pretty much confined to the Zen subset of the Buddhist blogosphere. And I have a couple more thoughts about it, about misinformation and incivility, and how it all, taken together, has value...

I think sometimes the blogosphere is a vehicle for people who want to teach but who have not trained with or at least have not received authorization within the tradition they want to represent. They make up their authorizations or claim traditional authorizations are themselves worthless. Their teachings are a ragbag of good, bad and indifferent. (Well, that might be true of those of us with those authorizations, as well. But I think they're vastly more inclined to go off the rails than those who've done the work...) There aren't many, but they exist. Buyer beware.

At the same time there are legitimate teachers blogging. I personally like Dosho Port's Wild Fox Zen, frequently I enjoy Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen, and while still not very regular, I particularly enjoy John Tarrant's Zenosaurus, David Rynick's Perspectives and Melissa Blacker's Firefly Hall.

However the vast majority of Buddhist and Zen bloggers are just practitioners. They make no claims of authority. In fact most bend over backwards to make sure there's no confusion in that regard. Among my favorites are Enlightenment Ward and the Buddhist Blog mentioned above. After posting this a friend wrote to me saying only mentioning two regular people's blogs while noting five by teachers was unbalanced, as the vast majority of blogs are not by teachers, and he implied, there are more good blogs by just folk than by teachers. I think he's right. So, also, I recommend the Worst Horse, Sweeping Zen, Zen Under the Skin, Marcus' Journal, and while having spotty postings of late, one of my favorites is Homeless Tom.

Enlightenment Ward maintains the most comprehensive list of links to Buddhist blogs I'm aware of. Worth browsing...

All these blogs, whether from teachers or lay practitioners offer a wonderful mix of opinion, news and gossip.

Good stuff.

Mr Haederly concludes his article with this.

"James Ishmael Ford is more sanguine about Buddhism’s move to the Internet, especially when taking the long view. 'I think that, on balance, more good will come out of this than harm,' he says. 'I think it’s bad for many of the people participating, I think a level of misinformation is ubiquitous, and I think it’s very exciting.'”

He very much got me right there.

And I think its true...

* As of today, 26 November, The Venerable Brad Warner, just re-opened the comments section at his blog.

Marking the Publication of the Origin of Species

On this day in 1859 Charles Darwin's magnum opus On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published.

A hundred and fifty years! My, how time flies...

Of course with this book we all began an inexorable shift in human thinking toward an understanding of evolutionary biology that would reframe how we understand ourselves and our relationship with the world.

Yes, there are foot-draggers and naysayers. I still recall the kerfuffle in past years about the Christian fish bumper sticker followed by the Darwin fish bumper sticker followed by the Christian fish eating the Darwin fish bumper sticker. I loved it. How Darwinian...

But while in our culture this is still a deal, in the real world we're moving on and trying to figure out what this astonishing insight really means...



There's an interesting story in today's Times.

And, of course, for those inclined to go to original sources, here you go!

Passing Thought on What is a Spiritual Practice

Recently the Unitarian Universalist denominational president wrote about and to the youth chiding them to be socially active. I'm all for that. Most of us can use a little push to be a bit more engaged.

But what caught me was that he said, a) "hanging out" isn't a spiritual practice. And b) social activism is.

I think the Reverend Peter Morales has much to offer our Association and I look forward to his having a successful time riding the bronco of our denominational presidency.

But he seems to have problems understanding spiritual practice.

Well, actually, as do most of us within our liberal religious tradition. The whys are a long story, best left for another time...

Here I just want to focus on spiritual practice, how it can be a useful term and how it can fail at utility.

As one can imagine, once the president's remarks were published, various defenders of hanging out quickly emerged. They correctly point out various positives in the experience. And there are lots, no doubt.

As I've looked around, fewer seem to have wanted to hold forth on the spiritual practiceness of social activism. But just to be sure, I do want to hold up, how like with hanging out, there certainly are lots of spiritual aspects to social engagement...

All depending on our definitions, of course.

For me "spiritual" follows its etymology and is that which gives life. It is about the bottom line of things. The fundamental matter.

And practice for me has two aspects. There is preparing. And there is doing.

So, spiritual practice is the work of spirituality. It is how we prepare our lives, and it is the doing of our lives in quest of and informed by our experience of that which gives us life.

So, in the sense of doing itself both hanging out and social activism fit the bill. Sure they're spiritual practices. Although there's also a so what in that. By this definition very little wouldn't be a spiritual practice.

Because, I think, it lacks the whole preparation aspect. And so I feel without that part within it the term spiritual practice is largely meaningless.

And this is my difficulty. Such is how it is in some of the circles within which I move. For many of my friends they can't really seem to distinguish between a weekend on the beach, a walk in the woods, reading a good book, hanging out, working at the food pantry, advocating for marriage equality, sitting down in silence for half an hour a day, going to a Vipassana retreat or a Zen sesshin.

I suggest only in the world beyond one and two are these things the same.

As preparation they are not all equal. And only some are in the fullness of that term legitimately spiritual practices.

So I say. Although I do have some experience in these matters, so I hope you don't think I'm just gassing.

If you feel some resonance with this assertion, well, I think there are a few things that mark out a spiritual practice that might actually help you walk to the place where you can step beyond self and other and to find the new heaven and the new earth to which our teachers call us. Not a complete list, by a long way. But three critical aspects of a real spiritual practice.

1) You need some shut up time. If you're making noise all the time it is hard to pay attention, hard to notice the lessons and the lesson.

2) You need some regularity. Doing it once might open your heart and eyes. Has happened. But most of us need to return and return and return.

3) You need someone to check you. The brain is a great liar. We tell ourselves all sorts of stories about what we need and deserve, only some of which are true. Also along the spiritual way we have lots of experiences. Mostly of limited or actually no value on the way. Someone who has walked the way before you, who you have some trust in, and who is willing to say the hard truth now and again, is worth their weight in gold.

Now each of these things needs further elaboration, and there are other points, to boot. But as basic markers, if what you're thinking of as your spiritual practice doesn't have all three, I suggest it may well have value, but it isn't complete, and it isn't a spiritual practice worth calling by that name.

The world is on fire. You're going to die before you notice it. Stop fooling around...

Two cents on a Monday morning...

Just Found Myself Thinking of JFK

On the Mayflower Compact, the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes and a Spirituality for the Twenty-First Century

On this day in 1620, if you adjust for the change in calendar from Julian to Gregorian, forty-one passengers of the Mayflower, which was at the time anchored in Provincetown Harbor at the end of Cape Cod, signed a compact. This document was brief enough...

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

Of course social contracts were in the air. The idea that people should gather together in some sort of democratic manner had been bruited about for ages.

What is important here is that with this document the idea enters the religious sphere as for all practical purposes the Pilgrims who would establish the Plymouth colony like their Puritan cousins up the coast in Boston were establishing theocracies, there was no air between the civil and the religious aspects of life.

As the Puritan and Pilgrim strands matured and became Massachusetts and Congregationalism took root as the uniting form of church governance this idea of individual conscience and the relationship between individuals within communities of faith became increasingly a spiritual question. Gradually the principles of freedom and reason and tolerance would take on a religious cast.

And the spirituality we call Unitarianism would spring from all this.

It should be noted there are other Unitarianisms around the globe that do not depend upon a congregational polity to uphold individual freedom - the Unitarians of Great Britain and Ireland both maintain presbyterian polities and the Hungarian speaking Unitarians maintain modified episcopal polities. And all have to one degree or another a sense of the preciousness of the individual.

But how this happened in America and how covenant became so central has had substantial consequences of emphasis and eventually of what becomes central to this spiritual enterprise.

Today Unitarian Universalism is the heir to a fairly radical congregationalism. While congregants and especially ministers bemoan the creeping authority of the center, in fact the denominational structure is extremely weak, having no authority to assess financial support and no provisions for disciplining congregations. Only the ministers are bound by rules generated from the center, and if they have the support of their congregation and no need to seek a new placement, they can happily thumb their noses at the center with relative impunity, as well.

But even though the central institution is weak, one is not allowed to topple toward a bare libertarianism, one is still bound within relationships. Only that the central expression of this connection is found in the more intimate setting of a living congregation rather than within denominational structures.

That said, all this to what effect?

Personally I'm concerned with the spiritual consequences.

I think they emerge as both the first and seventh principles of the UUA's statement of Principles and Purposes.

Yes, the fifth principle is a straight ahead call for democratic process. But I think the reasoning and the deeper call is found in the first and seventh principles.

The first speaks of "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." The seventh calls for "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

There was an attempt to replace "respect" in the seventh principle with the word "reverence." For various reasons it failed by the slimmest of margins at a vote of the UUA General Assembly in 2009. Still, I believe the intuition this is a more profound thing going on and calling for reverence rather than respect hangs in the air, and whether enshrined in the document or not, is a sense informing how we might best investigate the matter.

I believe these two statements are the most amazing theological assertion to rise in modern Western religion. They are naturalistic, that is they do not rely upon God's revelation. And yet they do not deny the possible hand of God in their discovery, or how these insights are planted in the human heart. One can hold this perspective and be nontheist, a classical theist, a pantheist or a panentheist.

The principles themselves leave the investigation of how they arise in other hands and instead go to their direct consequences within our lived lives.

Which is that the human person (and I believe implicit in this the whole of creation) is as it is precious. Each individual is unique and wondrous as it emerges. And this individual always and only emerges out of the web of relationships. As unique and precious as the individual is, the individual is always a part of some greater. And that greater is the whole of the cosmos united in an endless play of relationships.

And implicit in this is an understanding of the human mind.

We can discern our differences.

And we can discern our unity.

And this stance implies strongly that we can "know" in the gnostic sense of coming to a fully manifested realization that is more than the process of reasoning by itself, more than an idea bubbling in the brain. Rather we can experience the twin realities of our individuality and our connection as one thing as the very foundation of our life.

Understanding this, and coming to a direct experience of it, is what makes it a spiritual path not unlike Buddhism. Although Unitarian Universalism tends to lack Buddhism's sense of tragic. It seems to me stylistically Unitarian Universalism is a bit more like Taoism's naturalism, if lacking Taoism's taste for the fantastical.

For me what brings this all together is the fourth principle which holds up "a free and responsible search for meaning."

Here the responsibility is placed upon the heart of the individual.

And sometimes this means license to do nothing or to follow whatever bypath one wishes.

But if one feels the urge of responsibility for the whole, for suffering humanity, for the pain of the world, then the quest for meaning, that sense which gives us direction, from which all morality and all hope rises, becomes compelling. And then we have something.

I consider this the heart of liberal religion.

I believe there is a perennial quality to this insight. It can be found more or less complete in all religions, or at least those that have been around a while.

And there is something peculiar about the Unitarian Universalist enterpise that opens it to hyphens. One may be a UU Christian, a UU humanist, a UU Buddhist, and many, many more forms of Unitarian Universalist.

Personally I'm deeply interested in how all this informs my Zen Buddhism and how my Zen Buddhism informs this emergent Western expression. I see others using (not quite the right word... Engaging. Dancing.) the traditions of Christianity and Judaism in similar ways. Again using doesn't quite feel the right word - it is a full hearted engagement. It is a dance. The list of partners is long. Earth-centered perspectives can be enormously valuable, particularly those aspects found in Native American traditions. I can see how Hindu and Taoist spiritualities can be a part of this.

It is, yes, dangerous. Many dead-ends will appear. No doubt.

And it is a human enterprise, so abuses have and will appear.

And, it is so exciting.

Who knows what can come out of an open-hearted investigation of this matter?

Particularly if we are humble, and look to the older traditions, and seek that wisdom wherever it might appear.

Applying a fierce devotion to attention, to not turning away, to looking, looking, feeling, feeling, reflecting, and looking again.

Something precious is afoot.

And it all, I believe, can be traced back in significant part to those forty-one Pilgrims sitting in the bowels of the Mayflower and creating a compact, a contract, a covenant.

Never dreaming where it could lead...