As the apocalypse continues, and I begin to go stir crazy from not being able to set foot outside in the smoke (literally feeling sick walking to the mailbox), I wanted to share a couple of philosophically/spiritually uplifting reads:

Wind, a short-story manhwa by Yuyun, which is about Buddhist monk and a two-tailed fox in WWII-era Korea. It is ( Read more... )

Recently my uncle, Bill Sanford, passed away at eighty-two years old. Bill was a minister in the Methodist Church. He was also one of the most purely positive role models in my life. I am grateful to Bill in countless ways for his loving presence, but I want to focus on the impact he had as a Christian on me as a lifelong agnostic. What a ( Read more... )

(light spoilers, not cutting)

In church today, we had the Earth Day service, which consisted of singing about gratitude to God for the glories of the Earth and about our responsibilities steward the Earth. Because I've been obsessing about Trigun, I found myself contemplating how Trigun's Plants function as a metaphor for ecological awareness ( Read more... )

For the Easter service in church today, they sang the "Hallelujah Chorus"--very well. I was surprised, given that completely unrehearsed people from the congregation were invited to come sing with the choir. It sounded almost professional ( Read more... )

Jeremiah: God Talks to Mister Smith

I was reading a review of Jeremiah the other day in which the commentator expressed some discomfort with the way Mister Smith is depicted as hearing the voice of God. The commentator stated that the effect was to make the existence of God a fact in Jeremiah canon in a way that left no room for diversity of ( Read more... )

I have just finished reading, with great enjoyment, Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I had never read one of his books before and was charmed by his personable yet scholarly voice. I agreed with a lot of his arguments and, he would be pleased to hear, even felt myself swing a little further to the atheist side of the pendulum. But I did not ( Read more... )

Happy Downfall of Sauron Day! This, in the LOTR-verse in my head, is anniversary 28 ( Read more... )

Again from snowgrouse, a religion quiz:
( Read more... )