The Dalai Lama and Ann Coulter

This week in a bookstore in the Chicago Airport, I saw two books side by side. Ann Coulter's book "How to Talk to a Liberal" was next to the Dalai Lama's "The Wisdom of Forgiveness."

Was it by design or by chance?

Those two together, it was pretty cool. Just thinking about forgiveness, to and from several directions, the implications are wholesome.

The Hike from Sugarlands to Gatlinburg

Conversations with Goethe

From the book which Nietsche called the best German book there is: Conversations with Goethe,


"It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal"

p. 8 (Sept. 18, 1823)

from my local paper

Believe those who are seeking the truth

Doubt those who've found it


Andre Gide

Playing God

I agree with the observation of Simon Singh in Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe that every technology seems to have its critics. We've all heard the old saw about "if God had meant for us to fly he'd given us wings." There are so many examples of that type of thinking. In Singh's book there is a most unlikely, to me, example of this. It had to do with the invention of photography. Seems a fellow was offended by Louis Daguerre's invention and stated that

"The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible . . . but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God."

(from page 201 of Singh's book.)

We hear similar things today about certain emerging medical technologies. You know what I mean.

The Great Chain of Being

Just got The Great Chain of Being via Amazon today. It caught my interest because of references to it in The Marriage of Sense and Soul by Ken Wilber. So much to read. Last night I checked out Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy from church. Won't read much this weekend 'cos we're headed to Memphis for my mother-in-law's 90th birthday!

The Universe's Habit ... or Addiction?

"The Universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between freinds, a job well done, the smell of fresh-baked bread. Beauty is everywhere." Matthew Fox p64 of Spiritual Literacy.

Now off to work to mix some chemicals.

Conscious Experience

THE WORLD OUTSIDE US IS FILLED WITH SPIRIT AND MIND. IT IS IN THE WOODPECKER OUTSIDE MY WINDOW PECKING IN THE DEAD TREE.

from "The Mind in the Hand: A Meditation" by Linda Hogan in Parabola vol 30 #3, p. 61, 2006.

It seems to me that the best apologetic against a reductionist/mechanical world view is that fact that conscious experience exists.

What Have I Learned?

What have I learned in the few months since starting this blog?

1. That it is difficult to articulate what I feel. It is hard work saying what I want to say.
2. I don't have that much to say.
3. I still do not want to disclose my feelings about a number of subjects that are important to me.
4. I am terrified when I see that someone has responded.
5. Still expect to continue doing this.

Thoughts about change

I well recall thinking back in the nineteen seventies and eighties, that the generation of my great-grandparents saw more technological change than any previous generation. For instance, a great grandfather was born in 1874, before the light bulb, telephone, cars, planes, and musical recording entered the scene. He lived to 1972; so, he lived to see all those things and even the moon landings. I wish I could have asked him what he thought about it all.

I used to think that I was born after it all happened. That I was living in the modern world and was used to change. The older folks, I thought, had a trouble with change. They had trouble with new technology and with old habits, like racism for instance.

I now realize that things have changed quite a bit in my lifetime. The ubiquity of personal computers, the internet, the changing political scene, the work a day world. I realize that I have trouble changing and adapting. A person tends to think, mostly subconsciously, that the way the world was when they were ten years old is the way things oughta be. Well the world has changed a great deal since 1960 when I was ten. We are not going to go back there. Wouldn't want us to.

Light -Ultimate Truth

There is a Light that shines

beyond all things on earth,

beyond us all,

beyond the heavens,

beyond the highest,

the very highest heavens.

This is the Light

that shines in our heart.


-- Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7 --

John Grisham and the Church of Christ

In his book "The Last Juror", John Grisham gives us a small town Mississippii setting from the late sixties to seventies. His main character, a newspaper man, attended all the churches in town. He mentions the CofC two times. Of course he brings out our most salient feature, the lack of musical instruments. The other characteristic that he mentioned was the lack of emotion.

Church of Christ, Egypt, AR.

In October 1929, a lady brought her newborn son to this church. Now, after a career preaching in many states, he has returned and is the minister here. He is my Dad.

Catching the Light again

I just commented over at Wade Hodges blog about "Catching the Light". Below is a reprise of what I said here back in Feb.


_______________________________________________________________

Just finished reading this book by Arthur Zajonc. It is great. I posted this at Travis Stanley's Blog.

I would like to recommend a book I've just read. It has all the things I like in a book: ancient history, science, religion, poetry, great prose ... It is "Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind" by Arthur Zajonc. It is a kind of history of how we humans have perceived the nature of light since the time of the Greeks and it has nearly always been at that juncture between what we conceive of as the divine and the material. It is full of metaphor and unexpected turns of thought. I'll give one example of something interesting. He discusses how several poets and artist types were depressed (my word) by Newton's reduction of the phenomenon of the rainbow to a mere scientific explanation. He quotes a poem by a Thomas Campbell (not the RM one) that captures their attitude

"When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws"

And John Keats wrote also

"...In the dull catalogue of common things,
Philosophy will clip an angel's wing's,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, the gnomed mine ...
Unweave a rainbow..."

It struck me as I read this that it may bear a relation to why so many American's have such a resistance to what science has learned about our origins. We love mystery, we desire wonder, we do not want to believe in what many perceive to be a cold, remote and random process based material law. Comfort is sought in the miraculous.

But there may be a third way and books like this one help illumine the path to it.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." (George Eliot)

Thanks to Jim Hughes for the quote in the title above. It is an encouragement to me. Came across his blog somewhere while surfing through Church of Christ folk blogs.