After what I can only call a shitstorm of a week in politics and world events, I find that I need some way of thinking about my place in the world that keeps the exercise of hope alive. Here are some thoughts I recorded before running off to bury my head in the ground.

To shake things up a little, here's a very silly naughty bit from a gathering we went to, where all the blind folks had penned up their guide dogs out back. In her defense, Kathy was tired, and she is not responsible for anything she says or feels (ahem!) in that condition.

Looking into An Endless Trace by Christopher Bamford again. This passage is interesting because it suggests that in reading the natural world and in reading the Bible, we are learning about events that take place within ourselves. Again, we're trying to crack the glass that makes us feel as if we're separate from the past; trying to see all of creation as wise and deeply involved in humanity.

Japa, the man and mind behind www.pythabacus.com, sat down at the end of last summer to talk of many things. In this piece of the conversation, he talks about the different kinds of death, all of which involve surrendering our consciousness to something outside of us, be it Luciferic or Ahrimanic in nature. The deed of Christ that our churches tell us about begins to come into sharper focus as we consider what "victory over death" might mean.

This one is more of a commentary than a reading. I'll admit up front that I haven't done full justice to Erik Reece's book An American Gospel by picking select passages to respond to. Still, there is a tendency among those who (rightly) criticize religions for being corrupted to throw out the original message along with the corrupt messengers, and I'm trying to pull some of it back from the scrap pile.

I'm no scholar, theologian or historian--just a simple caveman, really--but I've heard that the truth of reincarnation was widely known and accepted in earlier times. Did something happen to stamp out this knowledge? I don't pretend to know. But I can't see anything demonic or anti-Christian in exploring how the idea of reincarnation and Christianity can be compatible. Maybe this kind of exploration can even enliven our understanding of the more difficult (and misused) texts.