So I am walking around an art exhibit with this lovely, smart woman, taking in all of the conceptual art, making snarky remarks that I hope she finds clever. Then I wander into this dark room and see the video above playing. It hits me like a baseball bat to the gut. I find out…
Category: The Spirit
Looking Fly for My Uncle Oscar
Yesterday, a couple hundred of us gathered at Saint Patrick's Church in Rodeo, California to bid farewell to our beloved Uncle Oscar Santos. It was a beautiful funeral, with a tender eulogy from his pastor Father Larry and sweet remembrances from my cousins Reena and Vicky. Uncle Oscar was a powerful bass singer, and a…
Subterranean: Quaker Meeting as a Subway Train
I realized reading through the #QuakerBuses tweets that I had long ago likened Quaker Meeting for Worship (aka "church") to being on the subway. This is a poem I wrote in 1997 called "Subterranean." subterranean I take the subway to churchSharing this unguarded early Sunday spaceWith others seeking their own destinationsTheir own agendas Who can…
Stephen Colbert Likens Quakers to a City Bus: Launches #QuakerBuses Meme
I am way behind on this meme, but apparently on a recent episode of "The Stephen Cobert Report," fake news anchorman Cobert was discussing "the best" religions with comparative religions professor Stephen Prothero. At one point, Prof. Prothero describes how Quaker Meeting for Worship is full of a bunch of people sitting together in silence,…
When I’m Gone, Just Let Me Go: the Will to Not Live
So my family has been struggling with a series of health issues, most recently a very sick relative who is hanging on by a very thin thread and whose spouse is having difficulty deciding on what to do about it. Essentially all of his body functions have failed him and he is completely non-responsive to…
Work as Love: the Joyful Workweek
In a previous blog post, I described a lot of what I liked about the book The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, particularly his emphasis on not deferring on your dreams and thinking creatively about how to structure your work / life balance. One of my major problems with The 4-Hour Workweek is that Ferriss…
Balinese Spirituality and Terrorism
So one of the amazing things about being in Bali is how omnipresent their spirituality is. You litreally can't take two steps anywhere without nearly crushing a small offering on the ground in front of a store or a hotel. The offerings typically have some flowers, fruit and a cookie or cracker in a tiny…
Quakers, Participatory Culture, and Our Mission in the World
A few weeks ago, I went to a really interesting talk by Wess Daniels on Quakers and mission at the lovely Friends Church of Berkeley. Wess is a doctoral student and a released minister from Camas Friends Church in Washington. I really had not idea what to expect, other than the fact that a cross-section…
Following a Leading : a two week update on my Bay Area move
"The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." — Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, 1973 So it's about two weeks into my big move from New York City to the Bay Area, which has been really wonderful so far. Mole and I are mostly…
Strawberry Creek Meeting: Sun-drenched Silence in Downtown Berkeley
Today I continued my Tour of Bay Area Quaker Meetings by visiting the Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley. I arrived at the location a few minutes late, where I found a dozen or so people sitting in on folding chairs in the middle of a school courtyard. "I guess this is the Meeting," I thought…