Tag: learned

What I wish I’d known before I had to learn it.

Anatomy and Metaphysiology: States of Grace or Tangent

PERHAPS BEFORE DELVING DEEPER INTO Things Glimpsed it would be helpful to explain my terms, and how I arrived at them.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been fascinated/obssessed/entranced by “God,” or the “Great Spirit,” or “It What Is” or more specifically the undisclosable Reality behind those words. I was often taken aback by such pop-in-the-head questions as “What came before God?” or “What would an infinitely tall stack of paper cups look like?” or “Does the bathroom wallpaper really have little toilets all over it, or does it just look that way to me?” (Sadly, ’twas the former.)

I say this to tell you that I’ve been both looking for and halfway expecting Weird Inner Experiences all my life. When they actually began happening, though, I honestly didn’t know what to make of them. Continue reading “Anatomy and Metaphysiology: States of Grace or Tangent”

Video: “The Monk and the Rabbi”

SOUNDS LIKE A SETUP, BUT while the speakers are lighthearted (pun intended) their topic is both serious and joyful. Brother David Steindl-Rast of http://gratefulness.org and Rabbi Lawrence Kushner (http://www.rabbikushner.org/) talk shop: specifically, mysticism and religion, but in accessible terms. (They’re also chatting over dinner.) At just under eight minutes, this video clip is the length of a cup of tea or coffee; while such things are best learned face-to-face, intimate multimedia isn’t a bad second. And since tonight begins the festival of Chanukah, a little more light isn’t bad either.

YOUTUBE: The Monk and the Rabbi

One Conversation

WE WERE DISCUSSING SYNAGOGUE FUNDRAISERS, and I suggested an egg toss.

E. G., who knows who he is but may not want you to, looked at me with the sad seriousness of the ex-military and first responder. “Eggs aren’t for tossing,” he said. “They’re for eating. It debases us to play with something that half the world is starving for.”

That was ten years ago. To this day, the sight of someone playing with or otherwise wasting their food still makes me itchy inside.

One conversation was all it took to change my mind about something I had never seriously thought through. What will it take to change yours?

Accented Enlightenment

SO MANY OF OUR VERBAL surroundings are invisible to us; we live like blind fish in a sea of words. Two experiments to make the background pop out:

1. Try shifting the accent on multiword phrases; e.g., “Vanity Fair” turns from a magazine into a wry comment on mores (Vanity Fair instead of Vanity Fair). That may actually have been the original intent, FAIK.

2. From where you’re sitting now, how many words can you see (e.g., ID tags, slogans, ads)? Of these, how many are necessary for the worded thing’s function (e.g., the colorful packaging on a soda can)? If not, then why do they exist?

By paying attention to our attention, we become open to universes-next-door … right in front of our faces.

Ian Fleming’s Wisdom School

FROM THE NOVEL “GOLDFINGER,” PAGE 056 of the Penguin Centenary edition:

Bond sat back. He was prepared to listen to anyone who was master of his subject, any subject.

(This is one of those quotes that keeps coming into my mind when speaking with anybody about anything they know well and love, especially if they know and love it better than I do. Everyone’s an expert on something. Now go learn.)

Ghosts Don’t Interest Me

NOTE THE SPECIFICITY OF THE title — I didn’t say I don’t like ghosts, or that I shun their company or “disbelieve” in their “existence.” But they’re no big thing to me, any more so than the other amazing things about which I can do nothing but appreciate.

Like most people, I stand at the rim and center of diverse circles of friends: the local Jewish community, the local media community, my pirate buddies, college fiends, pagans, ol’ hippies and any number of peace officers, firefighters and clergyfolk, each of exceptional intelligence and veracity, all of whom trust their eyes and ears despite preconceptions, and whose only motivation in retelling some awfully weird goings-on was to understand their UFO sighting, religious vision, haunting, reincarnation evidence, Ouija session, telekinesis, missing time, seance, monster encounter or near-death experience. (Like I would know.) Continue reading “Ghosts Don’t Interest Me”

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