I woke up all at once, under a great pressure: decide. But for what? What was the problem I was solving? Or the choice I was making? It was raining when I fell asleep close to midnight, but while I slept, the rain turned to snow, a light dusting of which spackled the world whileContinue reading “Advent Journal: Now and Then Singing”
Author Archives: Sean
Advent Journal: Pinballing
Last night, sitting quietly doing nothing, pinballing between memories, arguments and fantasies, I remembered something Chris Fields said, and it settled me. It quieted me. Fields points out (in his commentary on “Excavating Belief About Past Experience: Experiential Dynamics of the Reflective Act” by Urban Kordeš and Ema Demšar) that human experience obviously includes bothContinue reading “Advent Journal: Pinballing”
Three Brief Essays on Abhishiktananda
Notes on a Christian Vedanta I The Ass and the Heart are One I want to think about something Abhishiktananda said in Ascent to the Depths of the Heart. He said that Christianity could not possibly sugar out only “concern for one’s brothers” because that failed to fully compass “the experience that Jesus had ofContinue reading “Three Brief Essays on Abhishiktananda”
Advent Journal: The Way Narrows
Suddenly the way narrows. It’s okay – I asked for it. The Upanishads say that only once in a thousand times a thousand years does a soul awaken. But something is happening now that doesn’t neatly map to traditional religious expression. Jesus would not recognize the man on the cross in our churches. Nor whyContinue reading “Advent Journal: The Way Narrows”
Advent Journal: At the Behest of Jesus
I am willing to be Utopian this Advent, at the behest of Jesus, who does not see the world any other way. That’s the stance we take – love is real and only love is real. Then you’re in a different space. It’s new and you have be new within it. It takes two toContinue reading “Advent Journal: At the Behest of Jesus”
Advent Journal: If the Cross Comes
The cold breaks overnight, may I never forget to be grateful. Morning arrives gray but with a little mist. The river murmurs beyond the pasture, a language I love but never learned to speak. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it. There was a phase in my study and practice when, hadContinue reading “Advent Journal: If the Cross Comes”