Pray to Jesus

Sometimes everything seems connected. I found this refreshing video on NPR Ken Tuckers Top 10 Albums of 2013 with photos illustrating the lyrics that look like they are from a family photo album. What a wonderful juxtapostion in the refrain:

"Don’t wanna be buried in debt or in sin, So we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto, Cause there ain’t but two ways We can change tomorrow"

The last scene seems to let us in on the joke as it pans down to reveal a visual pairing, just in case we didn't (wink, wink) pick up the humor in the song (and in life). Then I happened upon a book review with the following:

"He believed that the little we do know about nature suggests that we know even less about God. We had only just managed to get an inkling of the grandeur of the cosmos and its exquisite laws that guide the evolution of trillions if not infinite numbers of worlds. This newly acquired vision made the God who created the World seem hopelessly local and dated, bound to transparently human misperceptions and conceits of the past."

• From "Varieties of Scientific Experience: Carl Sagan, Who Died on This Day in 1996, on Science and God" by Maria Popova.


Finally as I started this journal entry, I found something I had posted from 2007:

• In Mairs' view, faith -- and, for that matter, "God Godself" -- exists almost entirely beyond conscious comprehension, but then, that's exactly how it ought to be.

"The need to reduce God to a person having mental states with which we are familiar -- desire, anger, retribution (but seldom, alas, a sense of humor) -- does God little service and ourselves even less," she writes in this stunning collection. "We would do better to stand before God in silence, allowing the Holy to open to us without our definition or direction. Only God can say what God is. We can only allow ourselves to be taught."

• From the review by David L. Ulin of "A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith" as quoted in this 2007 blog entry.

A morning for personal reflection

I enjoy waking up slowly on a chilly winter morning to a near silent house. I have been unable to find the time to write much although I continue to ponder how Christianity and Buddhism intersect in my life.

I have not had a chance to read much in "Zen and the Birds of Appetite" but I like just having pocket classic edition around as a pneumonic device. I am encouraged in that I have found inspiration and understanding in Thomas Merton's writings in the years after college as I set out to make my way in the world. Just as he helped me make sense of the world then, I feel that I can again find handles to grab on to in this stage of my life.

Though no one is asking, I continue to ponder where I am in my spiritual understanding of the world. I don't have much opportunity to talk deeply about it so I mainly find encouragement through books and talks I find on the internet. I constantly find really good dharma talks and sometimes find some good progressive Christianity sermons.

My fantasy is to live as a Buddhist monk but I quickly come back to the reality of my current situation with family and friends. I say "fantasy" because I know the reality would not be anything like what I envision. I also have no desire to leave my family and friends that I love. I mention it though because I am finding so much wisdom in the dharma talks so the fantasy is to immerse myself.

The tension I find in my excitement is that I don't want my description of Christianity to sound critical of what other people have found helpful and valuable. I just find that American Buddhist thought has an easier time of getting to the point when explaining life and the world we live in. There is a consistency and simplicity:

"A Buddhist is primarily a person in search of a satisfying life while pursuing enlightenment and practicing compassion and loving kindness."

Although I hear them quoted all the time, I have not read Buddhist ancient texts. They do seem to directly offer guidance. I don't find the same for the bible. This collection of books contains advice but one has to find it within Jewish law, history, prophets, gospels, and letters

"Judas went away and hanged himself. Go and do likewise."

This is my ridiculous combination of Matthew 27:5 and Luke 10:37. The rapture is much more complex but not much different.

I am not enamored with Progressive Christianity as much as the buddhism I have encountered. I was delighted when I was handed a copy of "Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity." David M. Felton and Jeff Procter-Murphy have, as the publisher says, brought "together the voices of top Bible scholars and church leaders." I have read most of these authors and have found them very helpful in sorting out Christianity. This book is a great overview of how to go beyond the shallow view of American Civil Religion that many folks mistake for the message of Jesus.