0. EVERYONE HAS BELIEFS/KNOWLEDGE about the nature of the (inner) world; while I don’t much like labels attached to such things it seems fitting to call mine “Religious Agnosticism.” Here’s a handful of relevant definitions (partly because a handful of…
Tag: 5 Thoughts
A handful of topical mentations.
5 Thoughts: Resist!
I DON’T USUALLY GET POLITICAL. But this is no time for silence. I did not vote for the current President. I find him arrogant, cruel and stupid. His policies, appointments, and disdainful comments about our institutions and values are fascistic…
5 Thoughts: Comic Strips
1. THE MORNING ISN’T COMPLETE WITHOUT checking into the daily comics page and some of my favorite parallel universes. I scan most of what’s there (as my friend Gary Nordstrom says, “If the author went to the trouble of writing…
5Thoughts: How To Lead Services
0. THE FOLLOWING MAY BE PARTICULAR to Jewish worship services, which are the only sort I’ve led (not counting five weddings and various improvised blessings/moment-summonings). But I’ve tried to adapt the advice for anyone whose worship tradition includes structure and…
5 Thoughts: Alternative Pleasantries
1. REGRET IS LIKE THE PROVERBIAL potato chip, which is why I am reluctant to taste even one. Living a reasonably full life keeps any real regret firmly in its place; i.e., away. Yet while I regret nothing, there are…
5 Thoughts: The Solstice Eclipse
1. A CORRECT USE OF FACEBOOK is evidenced by all the pictures my friends took of last night’s eclipse. (Also nice: Chanukah’s virtual latke banquet.) 2. The overhead wonder was no less wondrous for being swathed in translucifying cloud at…
5 Thoughts: Veni, Vidi, Wiki
1. NO REPORTER (OR FORMER REPORTER) can resist two-centsing the Wikileaks Affair. Yet my opinions are still raw and untempered; this movie isn’t over yet, and any real proclamations of herohood or villainy are thus still naively premature. This unfolding…
5 Thoughts: The Whole God Catalogue
1. DESPITE THAT THIS BLOG’S SUBTITLE is “A Journalistic Exploration of Experiential Holiness and Snack Bar,” there seems to me to be little direct dealing with the “experiential holiness” end of things: why any 2010 Renaissance Man would fall in…
5 Thoughts: How To Preach A Sermon
1. Make ’em laugh with, but not at, you and your topic. But make ’em laugh first. 2. Remember that you’re a student too, no more learned (and sometimes embarrassingly less) than those listening to you. Your task is to…
5 Thoughts: The Idolatry of Gay Bashing
1. READ A LETTER TO THE SF Chronicle’s editor this morning by a gentleman saying he voted for Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, because heterosexuals own the word “marriage.” 2. I’ve heard this argument before, and like the other…
5 Thoughts: And On Your Left, the Pons Creamery
THE METAPHORAGER.NET VISITOR LOGS MAKE for interesting reading; it’s fun to see what rough edges of my prose snags on Google and other search engines; it’s nice to count the international flags and know that any Belgian with an iPhone…
5 Thoughts: EthnoReligiUfology
1. IF YOU DON’T READ THIS carefully, you’ll come away thinking that I think “God” is an alien, Moses a contactee and the Event at Sinai one of the humankind’s first recorded UFO sightings. 2. I really really don’t. But…