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May, 2009

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May 31, 2009 8:50 pm

Fwd: IMG00096.jpg

by Jordan    in Contributors
Someone sent this to me. Awesome!

Typed out with my thumbs on my phone,



Jordan




Begin forwarded message:



From: <
Date: May 31, 2009 19:28:51 PDT
To: SSgt Fountain <
Subject: IMG00096.jpg







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6:49 pm

WRESTLING WITH GOD: A Sermon Preached at the Ordination of Catherine Senghas to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry

by James    in Contributors


WRESTLING WITH GOD

A Sermon preached at the Ordination of Catherine Senghas to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry

31 May 2009

First Parish
Framingham, Massachusetts

James Ishmael Ford
Senior Minister
First Unitarian Church
Providence, Rhode Island


Text

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:24-31

This has been one heck of a week, particularly this last part. Thursday as I was driving to Portsmouth (the Rhode Island Portsmouth) for a wedding rehearsal I received a call. I was told it might be a good thing to swing by the hospital, a member of our congregation who has been there almost two weeks looked to be in serious decline. After walking through the wedding with an absolutely lovely young couple, basking in that optimism, which surrounded everything they were up to, I dashed off to the hospital. I was grateful for the call. It didn’t look good.

However, you never know. I went out Friday morning and he was doing very well, thank you. Not out of the woods, but this too left me with a sense of optimism. Later that day I officiated at the wedding. What a treat. Did I say how sweet these kids were, are? Between both events, so different, and yet so powerful, I felt really, really good. You never know, but that wedding sure looks like a great match to me. And as to that other matter, I went to bed feeling this person I’ve come to admire had moved well on the way toward healing.

Then yesterday morning I had the opportunity to bring the blessing to a Quinceanera ceremony for another family in the church, a traditional Hispanic coming of age event. Another treat. I did, however, feel some squeeze on my sermon writing time that usually takes much of Friday and a good hunk of Saturday. Then, long calendared, and paid for, otherwise, frankly, probably I wouldn’t have gone for sheer exhaustion, last evening Jan and I drove up to Boston to attend a Leonard Cohen concert. This may be his last tour, he is around seventy-five. I understand he’s only back at work because his savings were stolen by his financial planner while he was living in a Buddhist monastery. I’m glad we went. He is one of the true poets of spirit. And it was an experience of spirit, of breath, the breath of life. And I suspect a bit of advice buried in there for all of us. One doesn’t live by bread alone. Remember to gather the roses and cherish them. Then as we left the concert and I turned on my phone, I learned Stan had died. You really do never know.

Today, before the worship service a check in with Stan’s family, after the worship service, there was a congregational vote on the annual budget. This was followed by a mad dash up to Framingham for Catherine’s ordination. A couple of days ago I wrote briefly about the overwhelmingness, the amazing rush of all this at my Facebook page. Okay, I admit it, I was hoping for a bit of sympathy. It really has been busy, mind swimmingly busy. Should have found a dog. Instead of sympathy, my colleague Tom Schade wrote as a comment on my complaint about all these things going on, “Good thing you’re only the minister.”

That was what in some spiritual traditions is called “turning words.” It’s true; I’m busy, really busy. And in most of this I’ve in fact been mainly a companion, a witness for other people who were doing the actual work: the living, the dying, the marrying, the ordaining. There are some important things to notice here, and it all turns on noticing. This work of ministry, which is that something we are all called to out of our covenant of spiritual relationship, is first a ministry of noticing, of witnessing.

Today I want to explore some of the many lessons to be found in the word ministry. I suggest it contains not only the meaning of service, but also raises questions about whom we serve, and how we serve, how we must come as we are, as wounded beings, never fully worthy. In fact to understand this we need to touch upon grace. And we need to find how a fierce honesty lies within this, a call to name things as they are. All of this turns out to be a full on engagement, perhaps best named a struggle. But at the beginning it is all about a promise, a vow.

What we really are looking at in this shared process we call ministry is a vow. When Jacob stole his brother’s blessing, he had no idea what he was opening himself up for. He had without really understanding it taken the vow. We in our tradition find it in that first covenant when we actually sign the book and become members of a particular congregation. Like Jacob, we may not have noticed it, either. Whatever else may be explicit or implicit in our joining this community of faith, it is all about this promise, this vow. And the vow, the promise is that we, you and I will be present. We will show up. In fact I believe all ministry ultimately, is about presence. In fact presence reveals everything that matters.

Today the combined Framingham and Newton congregations join together to ordain Catherine Senghas into our precious Unitarian Universalist ministry. This is an important occasion. For Catherine and her family, of course. But, also, this is profoundly important for all of us who have joined together in the bonds of faith and have covenanted to be present to each other and to seek the great depth, which is the life divine.

Looking at the etymology of the word “minister” reveals how it is a practice or discipline of service, which is in truth the heart of our shared lives. And it is an office, a task, a job. The first meaning is the ground of our lives. The second is a task taken on by some of us, although that task only happens within that first meaning, within the dance of relationship. That called and ordained ministry which we celebrate today arises out of many years of discernment, preparation and testing. The authority to ordain is reserved exclusively to our gathered congregations and it is not conferred lightly.

The work of an ordained minister is the healing of great hurt. Once ordained and called to an agency, chaplaincy, the academy or a parish, a minister will be paid a salary, usually not enough, will be given support, almost always not enough, and will be expected to work. What makes this sacred work is in fact that part of ministry that we all share, whether ordained or not. Service.

Service. In the book of Joshua, the prophet demands to know who is it you, who is it I will serve? The poet of my generation says much the same thing. He sings to us, “You gotta serve somebody.” And the twelfth century Chinese spiritual classic the Wumenguan presents a koan, one of those questions of the heart that if fully engaged penetrate to the center of the universe. “The master Wuzu asked, “The Buddha and the one to come both serve another. Tell me, who is that other?” Service is at the heart of our lives. All meaning and purpose is found there. The only choice we have is who we serve.

So, service is our calling, and reflecting on this is very important, for Catherine in her specific work, but truthfully, for all of us. Knowing whom to serve is itself a conundrum. Fortunately the answer of who to serve is found as we discover how we serve. To enter the way of service, of ministry, and to serve appropriately, usefully, we need to understand ourselves. This is no easy thing.

Leonard Cohen sings to us this ancient calling. “Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” If we really want to be of service, if we hope to answer that call of being of use in this world, we need to know our own hurt and longing. This is no easy task. Sometimes the best way of entering this great matter of the human heart is through the wisdom stories of our ancestors.

It is within this context I find my mind turning to that strange biblical story from Genesis, which I’ve taken as today’s text. Jacob is a singularly unpleasant figure. He betrays his brother repeatedly, stealing both blessing and inheritance. One would be forgiven for assuming he would and certainly in a completely just universe, come to a bad end. But something else happens. And that’s grace.

And this story in Genesis describes how this happens. Jacob is visited in the night. Actually attacked. Not only is the gift not earned; sometimes it is forced upon us. In this dream story Jacob fights throughout the long dark with some mysterious being. A few clever folk have suggested it was his brother, more that it was an angel. The text, however, only say it was a man. In the match Jacob is grievously hurt. Still, he continues and then as the dawn breaks the being tries to leave. But Jacob holds on, demanding a blessing as the price for ending the struggle. And so the being blesses him by giving Jacob a new name, Israel, “one who struggles with God.” Or, also, I’ve heard it put “one with whom God struggles.”

As best I can tell, this way of presence has at least three facets: witnessing, naming and action. I am positive if God created us out of the dust in the divine image that means we are here to provide the eyes and the ears and, very much, the hands of the holy in this world. Even if there is no God, we have that very same obligation as the creatures of this earth who can see how truly we are all bound up together within the strands of a living web, who know we and the whole world are relations, are family. At the moment we notice that we are both precious individuals and completely bound up with each other, our actions take on meaning and purpose. And this leads to the wrestling match of our lives.

Our place in this world is first a place of witness. I believe this, with all my heart. Out of that presence we are, second, called to the work of naming. We need to name the hurt. We need to name the longing. We need to name the things of the world birthing and living and hurting and dying. We need, as well, to name the joy of it all, that peace beyond words at the heart of it all. This brings on the third aspect of presence. From witnessing and naming we can throw ourselves into the struggle, the struggle to become better people, better friends, lovers, actors in this world. Here that divine part takes shape as we find ourselves acting for something larger and more beautiful. Here we find who it is we serve. It becomes a struggle to make the world something better. It is a divine dream we find ourselves called to manifest.

We discover we are Jacob, we discover within service, within our shared ministry, we are Israel. We discover within this work of service, within this task of ministry, we are the sons and daughters of God. Nothing less.

Nothing less.

Amen.
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6:21 pm

Thanks

by Lauren    in Contributors
Finally back at the computer after days of running back and forth across Texas.

Peter, Tallis, Uku, Harry, Jordan, Barry, Jeremy, and "Just Zazen", thanks all for the well wishes.

There appears to be no "getting back to normal" after this event, just getting on.

I find in this odd aftermath of settling estates and planning funerals that I am wondering if I was kind enough to the guy while he lived, and seeing that the bell tolls for me too, I don't have a lot to say right now.

It seems so clear that when it's over, it's over, as simple as turning off a light when you leave the room.

Our existence props up so much; property ownership, pensions, credit cards, keys, bank accounts, tools, trailers, trash, friends, family, clothes, shoes, books, frying pans... and when we die, it's like the key post in a house being pulled out. The house heaves, sighs and collapses. The people left behind dig through the rubble, organize the remains, construct a final story, and move on.

Lasting influence? Maybe. But not "directed" influence, of course. We go. How other people remember us, interpret us does remain... but it is not 'us.' It is not the unique consciousness you sense about yourself.

There is no greatness or smallness.

Drops fall from the sky and land in the ocean.

It is all rain.
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10:24 am

ZAZEN IN A NOISY ROOM

by Brad Warner    in Contributors

My friend Svetlana lives in a small apartment with two roommates. She's a regular practitioner of zazen. So she asked me about a situation she'd encountered a few days ago.

Right at the time she'd set aside for her zazen practice, her roommates decided to start watching episodes of Family Guy in the adjacent room. There was no way to escape the noise. And to add even more misery, Svetlana is a fan of Family Guy and they were watching episodes she hadn't seen.

Still, she decided to do her zazen anyway. But she wanted to ask me what I thought of that.

I can totally relate! I used to have to do my zazen with the Zen Luv Assassins rehearsing with all amplifiers turned to 11 in the basement -- trying to work out a version of "She Said, She Said" without taking into account that the middle section is in 3/4 time. They just kept falling apart every time they got to the "When I was a boy" section. As the pirate with the steering wheel sticking out of his crotch said, "Arrrr, it was driving me nuts!"

Yet I kept on sitting, not just through that, but through countless other distraction -- noisy roommate arguments, noisy roommate sex, buses, trains and aeroplanes, you name it, I have probably done zazen through it!

At one of my stops on my recent tour some guy kept asking me about, like, if you're sitting and a plane flies overhead you lose your concentration. I kept telling him it didn't matter. He kept pressing the question. I don't know if I ever managed to convince him that zazen was still zazen even if you got distracted.

We are not trying to "establish one-pointed concentration" or whatever else some meditation teachers in other religions try and go for. It's still zazen even if you're doing it on a noisy playground at recess time.

Of course you should try and find the quietest spot possible. If you can wait for your roommates to finish watching Family Guy or talk them into using headphones that would always be better. And, to answer another F.A.Q., no, you cannot "do zazen to music." Meaning, you should not deliberately introduce distractions or entertainment into your practice. But sometimes the quietest spot you can find isn't very quiet. That doesn't mean you should neglect the practice. There is still some benefit to be had even if you have to do your zazen among all sorts of noise and distractions.

One of the strangest distractions I've had to deal with comes from Zen teachers who think it's necessary to provide entertainment for people who are sitting. There's a tradition called "kusen" in which the teacher gives a dharma talk during sitting. I hate that! I also hate it when they beat drums and ring bells unnecessarily during practice in a misguided attempt to ape certain misguided traditions present in misguided temples in Japan.

But you deal with what you gotta deal with.

OK. That's my sermon for the day. Now it's off to the salt mines to try and write some material for my next book. See ya!

P.S. By the way, I guess it wasn't the Jerry Rubin who came to that rally the other day. There is a politician here in Santa Monica named Jerry Rubin who is just about the right age, right "look" and right political affiliation (he lists himself on ballots as "Peace Activist Jerry Rubin") to be the Jerry Rubin and really seems to make no great effort to let people know he's not the Jerry Rubin.
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7:29 am

The Single Rail of Great Practice

by Dosho Port    in Contributors

















When you reach this point of "no stink of enlightenment" where there is no trace, you vow with great determination to let the absence of enlightenment continue long, long, long like a single rail of iron for myriad miles. This is Great Practice that encompasses the entire future. - Bokusan

As the old saying goes, “Zen is like soap. First we wash with it and then we wash it off.”

In this post I’ll focus on the Great Practice aspect of Bokusan’s Genjokoan comments. I’ve written here before about the meaning of shu and gyo.

Dogen’s Daishugyo fascicle parses the Wild Fox Koan, examining one aspect of our secret practice – that if we really train and realize then we’ll be free from karma and suffering. Then we’ll be safe and good and beyond the reproaches of this life.

In the old Wild Fox story, a Zen master became a wild fox for 500 lives because he said that a person of Great Practice was free from karma.

It is helpful to look carefully in order to discover what is meant here by “Great Practice.” Dai-shu-gyo is composed of three characters. “Dai” is great – simple enough, but too big to know.

“Shu” is often translated as “practice” but literally means to “govern oneself, conduct oneself well.” If each person engaged in the Buddha Way is to govern oneself, then each practitioner is sovereign.

Some teachers in the Zen world train students by first treating them like children with the teacher as the parent, as if this were the medieval world with its feudal power arrangement. People in the post-modern world are not serfs (or 18-year-old Japanese guys) so this approach is out of tune with the spirit of “shu. It may invite students who are willing to pretend to be children but this is not a recipe, in my view, for face-to-face transmission.

Here’s a koan from the Book of Serenity, Case 97, featuring a dialogue between a worldly sovereign and a dharma sovereign – two voices within each practitioner engaging in intimate inquiry together.

The introduction to the koan asks this question: “When a worldly sovereign of the dharma sovereign meet, what should they discuss?”

Emperor Doko spoke to Koke saying, "I have the treasure of the Central Plain. However, no one can set a price on it."
Koke said, “Your Majesty, please lend it to me so that I may see."
The emperor pulled the straps of his hat with both hands. Koke said, "Who can dare to set a price on the emperor's treasure!"

The commentary has this helpful instruction: “First get to know the sovereign; then we must know s/he is in the Central Plain; after that I want to ask you where your jewel is.”

Katagiri Roshi often said to us, “You must be master of the self.”

Getting to know the sovereign is a precondition of truly being the master of the self, governing oneself well withing the flux and flow of the 10,000 things.

The third character in Daishugyo, “gyo” is also often glossed as “practice” (e.g., Dogen’s “Gyo-ji” is often translated as “Continuous Practice”). “Gyo” is a radical that refers to “going” or “action.”

Here's a passage about “gyo” from Peter D. Hershock’s Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch’an Buddhism:

Originally, hsing (Japanese, gyo) had the primary senses of walking or walkways and doing in the sense of working…. In a largely nonvehicular society, walking connects us, establishing and maintaining in the most concrete and daily fashion our ongoing interrelation. No path or thoroughfare proceeds from wilderness or desert to more of the same, but only from family to family, from village to village. Our roads and markets lining them are evidence of the diverse manners in which we are continually being led together, the unique ways in which we benefit and share with and in one another’s labor.

“Gyo,” in its original usage had to do with moving, doing and connecting – with intimacy. Together, “shu+gyo” = governing oneself well within the activity of connection. The question in the Wild Fox koan, then, goes like this: "Is a person engaged in sovereign, intimate and immeasurable connection free from karma?

Freedom from karma is the activity of grinding off the stink of enlightenment and the stink of stink. Take, for example, the experience I had while studying with Katagiri Roshi that I mentioned recently. As I saw myself more clearly, I could hardly stand how self-centered I was. Barry commented how that is the basis of compassion for others in all their wonderful stinkiness. Nicely put.

And then ego co-opts this compassionate self and reifies it as something enduring. And then we see agin how stinky we are and rediscover again the basis for a living compassion.

Intensive forms of training like sesshin, help us sit facing ourselves for days without escape, sometimes steeping in the stink of whatever rotting corpse of a self we’re carrying. The wonderful virtue of sesshin is that it is relatively easy to discover that letting go, although counter-intuitive, is really the only sane option.

Capping Phrase:
“Stumbling about in darkness, you keep bumping into yourself thinking it’s someone else” (from Daido Loori’s note 3 to “107: Yumen’s Two Types of Sickness” in The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Three Hundred Koans).
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4:10 am

‘formal’ koans

by genkaku    in Contributors
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In response to a comment I made on his blog, a friend sent along a koan from the Mumonkan: "Wuzu asked, "Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. Tell me, who is that other?" The koan was, as my friend said, apropos of the small communication we were having.

And it made me think how poorly-informed I am about Zen collections and pointers. The downside of my ignorance is that I am missing handy tools. The upside is that I can be delighted when those tools are laid out before me...it's sort of like an adult playing peek-a-boo with a very small child who is endlessly surprised, even by endless repetition. Peeeeeek-a-boo!

It's too late for me now to return and ingest the information of a direction that I have spent quite a lot of time on. "Too late" means, as much as anything, that I am simply too lazy to hang in my memory banks the vast Zen teachings that can delight me when they are presented. I have loved Zen practice, but what is love if not the willingness to be surprised?

When I started out on spiritual adventures, I had an interest in Hinduism -- specifically Vedanta. I read up a storm ... tons and tons of books and scriptures and I knew so many long words and interconnecting reflections that I am surprised my head didn't pop. But that's how things begin, isn't it -- studying up on what is so alluring, finding hand-holds and satisfactions and, somehow, control of the matter?

But I was fortunate in all this study, all these books and longings and delights: One day, I had a serious epiphany when I realized I didn't know squat and that, although I didn't know the injunction then, it wasn't so important to do as the master did, the important part was to know what the master knew... and knew from experience, not just from the library. The epiphany consisted of the question ... how the hell do you DO that?

Anyway, by the time I switched gears and got into Zen and its emphases on zazen or seated meditation, I was pretty much read-out. Yes, I read some books in the same way I had read up on Vedanta, but I read with less verve, less assurance, less conviction. I wasn't anti-intellectual, but I was wary of my own intellectual confections. A part of me said, "Let someone else read those books." I had enough on my plate dealing with my knock-knees and the fact that they burned like fire when I crossed my legs over an extended period of time.

And that wariness of my intellectual confections extended to formal koan study. Somehow I felt that if I started down that road, given my wily abilities, I was entirely likely to go off the track. Yes, some teacher presented me with the koan "Mu" and yes I strained like a stevedore and yes, there were some bright moments attested to by those in 'teaching' roles, but ...

I think it was and probably remains enough for me that life writes or proposes the koans. It's not that I dislike or disdain the role that formal koans can play. I trust those old guys and their efforts to point out the quickest way home. It's just not something that really enveloped my heart. Life -- with all its love and surprises and goddamned fiery knees -- was enough for me.

But now, so many years later, I can delight and be warmed by the wonders of the formal koans that conform so exactly to whatever surprises have surprised or continue to surprise me. It's like finding out that "ou est mon chien" in French is the same as saying "where is my dog?" in English. I'm not trying to say I can or could waltz through a course in formal koans. I'd never make it. And I'm not trying to say that "life writes enough koans -- why screw around?" is the best or only or even a very good approach. I am saying that it's nice to meet friends ... loving friends ... you know, the kind of friends who surprise you and make you laugh.

"Wuzu asked, "Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. Tell me, who is that other?" How neat is that?!

It's no neat-er than a dandelion, but dandelions are pretty neat too.

Maybe one day I will be educated to the wonderful formal teachings of the teachings I have stumbled along behind. But I doubt if it will be in this lifetime.

But there's nothing saying I can't be delighted, right? :)

"Chacun a son gout" is the same as saying "to each his own" or "taste is taste."

Maybe I am entirely wrong about all this, but I've been wrong before. Being wrong is not so bad.
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2:00 am

Where is Buddha’s Teaching?

by Barry Briggs    in Contributors

I published this story on Ox Herding several weeks ago, but it's worth revisiting.

A monk once asked Man Gong, "Where is the Buddha's teaching?"

Man Gong replied, "Right in front of you."

The monk then said, "You say, 'Right in front of you,' but I don't see it."

"You make I," answered Man Gong, "so you don't see it."

The monk asked him, "Do you see it, Master?"

Man Gong responded, "If you make I, it's difficult to see it. But if you make you, it's even more difficult to see it."

Everything


Comment
We're profoundly uncomfortable in our lives and so we look around for a better way. In our search, we bring along all kinds of tools, including "me" and "you."

Man Gong Sunim strips away every tool, including our most cherished "I." Then what?

Image by Tom

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May 30, 2009 8:14 pm

The Disappearing Self

by Tallis Grayson    in Contributors
I’m watching the French Open. (Federer just lost the first set.) Anyway, my daughter keeps standing too close to the TV. And I keep telling her to move back. Telling her for the third time gave rise to following idea:

I was thinking about how when you move up close to the television screen the picture disappears – all you see are a bunch of dots (pixels). But then, of course, when you move back out a few feet there is the picture again.

This is like the experience of being a self. When you move deeply into the experience of being a self, it seems that the self disappears. But move back out a “few feet” and there is the self again.

So which position or state shows the situation as it really is? I suppose they both do. It all depends on your point of view. (Although, in the case of the television, sitting back a few feet is usually more practical.)

Okay, I need to go watch the rest of this tennis match.

[2 hours later]

(Federer won the match.)

I’m thinking that the deeper truth is not revealed in either the experience of being a self or the experience of being a no-self. But rather, the deeper truth is revealed in the movement between these states.

This is the miracle of an enlightened moment – freely moving between the experiences of self and no-self.

Tallis
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7:54 pm

The Birdman

by Nathan    in Contributors

There's this neighborhood guy that some call "The Birdman." He's maybe about 5 foot 9, has a thick, but somewhat receding head of dark brown hair, and is right around fifty years old. Sometime during his early twenties, he was in a very bad car accident, and, among other things, hit his head hard during the crash. For most of the last seventeen years, he has had a very steady job in custodial - until a series of run ins with his supervisor led to his ouster. After a period of unemployment, accompanied with some depression, he's now working again and is back at his favorite hobby - talking to and feeding the birds and squirrels.

Early this evening, I ran into Mark, the Birdman's real name, just after he finished dumping some seed under a tree. Walking across the street, he whistled into the sky, shifting his sound to mimic his favorite birds. Seeing me, he stopped and said "Cinnamon Girl, you should have seen her, she flew across the alley then dove straight down." He made a swooping motion with his hand, and then said "it was so cool." "I said, "I love you Cinnamon Girl. I know she love's me." Then he laughed in a very carefree way, nothing like the bitter snickering that accompanied his every other word during the long winter of unemployment he had just went through.

Suzuki Roshi once said "Trying to become someone else, you lose your practice and your virtue. When you are faithful to your position or your work, your true being is there."

Some people don't really know how to handle The Birdman. I have watched a few people - all older adults who you would think had left their high school antics behind - set fires under Mark by picking fights with him and belittling his love of the most common of city animals. Others I have seen laughing at his whistling and calling of names into the air - Cinnamon Girl is just one of many that has been given a name. Still others are simply perplexed by the well grown man standing in the alley with a bucket of seed calling sweet nothings into the trees.

I sometimes wonder if Mark isn't a modern day St. Francis, sans the Christian overlay. There are even stories of Francis preaching to the birds of God's love for them. With Mark, the middleman has been taken out, and love is simply transmitted from his heart to birds and back.

In some ways, it would have been interesting to know what The Birdman was like before the accident. However, at the same time, it really doesn't matter much in the great scheme of things. There is something divine in his presence as it is, even though he is just another ordinary guy, with ordinary ups and downs like the rest of us.

And isn't that the greatness of it all - that anyone can let their "true being" be present, even if only for a little bit, and for those of us who notice it, life could never be dull, never be boring. Those birds and squirrels are very lucky, and so is Mark. And the rest of us are better for having met someone like him, who is able to drop off social conventions and just be who he truly is.
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1:07 pm

horror heaped on horror

by genkaku    in Contributors
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Within the nourishing efforts and soft goose down of spiritual life, I always wonder where anyone will honestly place what is horrifying and full of tears. Can such things be avoided, embraced, abandoned, explained, criticized, escaped, blessed ... where will anyone honestly place them? Who but a liar can find goose down on a bed of nails?

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) – Saudi authorities beheaded and crucified a man convicted of brutally slaying an 11-year-old boy and his father, the Interior Ministry announced.
According to the statement issued by the ministry Friday (5/29/09), shop owner Ahmed al-Anzi molested the boy and then strangled him with a length of rope. He then stabbed the boy’s father to death when the man came looking for his son.
He hid both the bodies in his shop, the statement said, adding that al-Anzi threatened police with a knife when they came to arrest him.
Al-Anzi had previously been convicted of sodomy and owning pornographic films, a crime in conservative Saudi Arabia.
Crucifying the headless body in a public place is a way to set an example, according to the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islam. Normally those convicted of rape, murder and drug trafficking in Saudi Arabia are just beheaded.
London-based rights group Amnesty International criticized al-Anzi’s execution and crucifixion.
“It is horrific that beheading and crucifixions still happen,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International in a statement Friday.
“King Abdullah should show true leadership and commute all death sentences if Saudi Arabia is to have any role to play as a global leader or member of the G20,” said Sahraoui.
According to an Associated Press count, Friday’s execution brought the number to 35 beheading this year in the kingdom. In 2008, 102 people were beheaded.

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