The Spirit Rests Where it Will: A Zen Meditation on Pentecost and the Mystery of the Holy Spirit May 28, 2023 James Ford 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. Pentecost(by Jen Norton)     Today is the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday. In the Western church it marks the marvelous fable of the holy spirit coming to rest upon a throng of Jesus’ followers who had gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of weeks. ...

Remembering Ralph Waldo Emerson & Transcendentalism on his 220th Birthday May 25, 2023 James Ford 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. Ralph Waldo Emerson           For most of America, Transcendentalism was a literary movement. However, in fact it was a theological and spiritual revolution within American Unitarianism and only incidentally a literary phenomenon. As it is with movements of various sorts...

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. Robot washing dishes     After I shared my ChatGPT “homily on love” in the style of “James Ishmael Ford” one of my kinder friends assured me the voice was no where near like mine. Way too saccharine. Which I appreciated until I realized the object of saccharine was not actually clear. Another agreed that it wasn’t my voice. “Not a single single word sentence.” Which is s...

A ChatGPT Homily on Love in the style of James Ishmael Ford May 22, 2023 James Ford 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.       I asked ChatGPT to “write a homily on love in the style of James Ishmael Ford. It did. Sort of… Beloved friends, Today, gathered here in the sanctuary of our shared hearts, we come together to contemplate the radiant mystery of love. Love, that great and boundless force that flows t...

A Feast for Helena, mother of Constantine: A Mind Bubble on Saints and Pilgrimages May 21, 2023 James Ford 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. Icon of St Helena of Constantinople           Me, I love saints. I love the whole category of saints, holy people of their various religions. Holy people who are not quite considered gods, but who partake of something special. Sometimes they’re martyrs for their fai...

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. Gustave Dore’s Lucifer       I noticed how today, the 20th of May, is a feast for Lucifer in some parts of the Catholic liturgical calendar. Okay, Lucifer of Cagliari, a fourth century bishop of Cagliari in Sardina. Not much remembered these days outside of Sardina, he left a trail of controversy. His fame at the time was as a ferocious opponent of Arianism. His views we...

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.   Emily Dickinson DREAMING EMILY DICKINSON James Ishmael Ford Originally a sermon preached back when Jan & I lived in New England, revisited, dusted off, and lightly rewritten in honor of the 146th anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death. 1263Tell all the truth but tell it slant –Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth’s superb surpriseAs Lig...

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. Guanyin Bodhisattva   Dreaming of My Three Mothers James Ishmael Ford Mother’s Day. I find myself thinking about my mother now long dead. My auntie, my “junior mother,” more recently dead. Although also slipping back in time and memory. And, looming behind their mother, my grandmother. Each of them now among the great cloud of witnesses. A few times I’ve tried to outline...

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. Mary Baker Eddysometime in the 1850s   Mary Baker Eddy and America’s Last Witchcraft Trial  Today, the 14th of May, might be counted as a minor religious holiday of some sort. I try to note it when it rolls around. It was, as it happens, on this day, in 1878, that the last trial on a charge of witchcraft was initiated in an American court. It was a somewhat awkwardly for...

LIKE A SHOT OF HEROIN: Jack Kerouac on Buddhist meditation May 13, 2023 James Ford 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. Chinese Arhat image from Liao dynasty statue(Mary Evans Picture Library)   LIKE A SHOT OF HEROINJack Kerouac on Buddhist meditation Complex, by turns wonderful and awful, the beat writer Jack Kerouac is one of the handful of people responsible for bringing Zen into the popular English spea...

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. JobLeon Bonnatdetail 1880     God as a Zen Koan or Huatou James Ishmael Ford When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music. Rumi I notice that today, May 10th, is one of the days that Job of the Book of Job is celebrated. Job is one of my favorite figures in the Bible. And, thinking about him, I found a stream of mind bubbles playing out… Job and God....

Sex & Zen: Two Dharma Talks Investigating Zen Buddhism’s Third Grave Precept May 6, 2023 James Ford 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. Adam & EveAlbrecht Dürer, 1504   SEX & ZENTwo Dharma Talks Investigating Zen Buddhism’s Third Grave Precept Zen in the Japanese tradition counts ten grave precepts. They’re the first ten precepts of the Mahayana Bramajala Sutra, and are used by both householder...

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. King James BibleTitle Page, 1611         The King James Bibleand the Power of a Dreaming God James Ishmael Ford A bit of history. King James (the sixth of Scotland and first of England) not long crowned, planned a conference for November, 1603, to discuss sundry matters involving the relatively new church of which he was now head. While the ball started rolling when Henr...

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. Walpurgisnacht& the Rites of Spring Today, the 30th of April, and therefore the eve of May 1st is Walpurgisnacht. It’s a holiday, sometimes holy day, observed principally in Northern Europe, Germany and across Scandinavia. For Christians its the feast of St Walburga, an eighth century English born German abbess. Originally a Benedictine nun she became the abbess of a...

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 Dawn of Nichiren BuddhismNamu Myoho Renge Kyo James Ishmael Ford On the 28th day of the fourth lunar month, that would be today, the 28th of April by our reckoning, in the year 1253, the Japanese Tendai Buddhist monk Nichiren Shonin, proclaimed that the Lotus Sutra was the epitome of all Buddhist teachings. And with that, simply calling upon the title of the Su...

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. George Herriman                                   George Herriman, Creator of Krazy Kat: A Mind Bubble George Herriman died on this day, the 25th of April, in 1944. I’ve read that his creation Krazy Kat was likely more influential than popular. And that’s probably so. But he certainly had a fan base beyond other cartoonists. Me, for instance. I adored the strip. And in t...

THE MOTHER OF MY HEART: Reflections on the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California April 23, 2023 James Ford 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 MOTHER OF MY HEARTRemarks shared on the occasion of being named a “Distinguished Alumnx” at the Pacific School of Religion James Ishmael Ford Yesterday Jan & I spent the day at the Pacific School of Religion, where I earned an MDiv (1991) as wel...

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. Albrecht Durer Apocalypse   Zen, God, and Doubt: Encountering the Mystery James Ishmael Ford There’s a lovely meme that floats around on social media. The words are by Rachel Held Evans. It goes: “This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they...

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. James Ishmael Fordgiving a talk in Bhutan A Robot’s Dream: The Zen Teacher Goes Ego Surfing The latest in ego surfing is asking Chat AI for a bio sketch. A colleague just did it. Found out he was an Anglican priest, although he was pretty sure he’d spent the past thirty years as an English Unitarian minister. And it had him as the author of a book he’d never heard of. Ot...

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. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj             James Ishmael Ford Sri Nisargadatta is arguably the Zen community’s favorite Hindu. At the veryt least we sure like to quote Nisargadatta. As an example, I was reading a book on the practice of Jhanas, pretty inside Buddhist baseball. And there it was. A book on Buddhism quoting the Hindu teacher. Reality is not the result of a proces...