PROLONGING THE GOD EXPERIENCE INTO every waking moment. (All else — songs, prayers, chants, acts, texts, charity, incense, beads, building fund — is just stage direction. Which is not to dismiss the stage direction, since that’s one of the keys…
Tag: There’s a God in My Soup
Religious experience, or at least the experience of religion.
Aside
O G?D, DEAREST AND WISEST One, Maker of mercies and miracles, Describer in line and form, please: Save us from those sincere souls who know what You really meant.
Equationary Simples
METAL = ROCKS + FIRE / SLAG. WRITING = WORDS x TIME / TALENT. LOVE = PEOPLE – EGO x ACTION. COOKING = INGREDIENTS + TASTE x EXPERIENCE. TEACHING = THOUGHT1 + THOUGHT2 x EXPERTISE / TOPIC. FILM = IMAGES…
Two Indigent Sketches
1. HITCHHIKING THROUGH RENO IN 1985, I wandered by the green banks of the Truckee River, where a number of seen-better-days men lived in the park, in what apparently remained of their business suits. “Hey buddy, you got a second?”…
Punch-drunk Piety
WE ARE THE WRESTLERS-WITH-God, the ones grabbing His lapels and hollering “Speak up, sonny!” and don’t worry about staining the carpets. And we like It that way. You who put God on a shelf Who pull Him out once or…
Pithyism #210
RELIGION, OR AT LEAST JEWISH religion, and certainly a root cause of religion’s comfort, appeal and danger, is simply and little more than people doing what they like to do in the way they like and feel compelled to do…
Gritty Comfortoir
AND AFTER ALL IS SAID and done, and the horrible truth revealed The bodies taken away, the last question answered Comes William S Burroughs (the gravelly graandpa who’s done things the grownups won’t let you ask him about). “Interdimensional Alka…
“Judaism As Art”
or, There and Back Again Without Leaving (BECAUSE OF WORDPRESS, I’M REPUBLISHING this 2002 piece — it works better as a “post” than as a “page” — and although my kippa-wearing has become a bit less pronounced of late it…
5 Thoughts: 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…
“The Guest House”
SOMEONE WHO LOVES ME SENT me this poem. I offer it to you in the same spirit. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As…
Why Eclectic Spirituality Will Not Endure Half So Long As Traditional Religion
NO HOLIDAYS.
Hasidic Zen Riddle
Q: WHAT’S BEYOND GOD? A: More God.