Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
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Patheos is the world's leading multi-faith site dedicated to hosting the conversation on faith. This blog is written by James Ford, who is a Zen Buddhist priest and author, which mostly addresses aspects of the Zen life.
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
3d ago
The novelist Lidia Yuknavitch tells how once in her youth, “Joan of Arc visited me in a dream—in the dream, I was standing in our front yard and our house was on fire. She stepped out of the burning house and said ‘No one is coming to ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
5d ago
Today is the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday. In the Western church it marks the marvelous fable of the holy spirit coming to rest upon a throng of Jesus’ followers who had gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of weeks. While I might argue the point, Pentecost is usually called the birthday of ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
1w ago
After I shared my ChatGPT “homily on love” in the style of “James Ishmael Ford” one of my kinder friends assured me the voice was no where near like mine. Way too saccharine. Which I appreciated until I realized the object of saccharine was not actually clear. Another agreed that it wasn’t my ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
1w ago
I asked ChatGPT to “write a homily on love in the style of James Ishmael Ford. It did. At least sort of. Parts of it have robot James suggesting some sort of essence to life that we call love. On the one hand I’m pretty relentless in rejecting any form of essentialism ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
1w ago
Me, I love saints. I love the whole category of saints, holy people of their various religions. Holy people who are not quite considered gods, but who partake of something special. Sometimes they’re martyrs for their faiths. Often they’re wonder workers, in large or small ways. They might have the ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
1w ago
I noticed how today, the 20th of May, is a feast for Lucifer in some parts of the Catholic liturgical calendar. Okay, Lucifer of Cagliari, a fourth century bishop of Cagliari in Sardina. Not much remembered these days outside of Sardina, he left a trail of controversy. His fame at the time ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
2w ago
DREAMING EMILY DICKINSON James Ishmael Ford Originally a sermon preached back when Jan & I lived in New England, revisited, dusted off, and lightly rewritten in honor of the 146th anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death. 1263Tell all the truth but tell it slant –Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth’s ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
2w ago
Dreaming of My Three Mothers James Ishmael Ford Mother’s Day. I find myself thinking about my mother now long dead. My auntie, my “junior mother,” more recently dead. Although also slipping back in time and memory. And, looming behind their mother, my grandmother. Each of them now among the great cloud of witnesses. A ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
2w ago
Mary Baker Eddy and America’s Last Witchcraft Trial Today, the 14th of May, might be counted as a minor religious holiday. At least of some sort. I try to note it when it rolls around. It was, as it happens, on this day, in 1878, that the last trial on a charge of witchcraft ..read more
Patheos Blog » Monkey Mind
2w ago
LIKE A SHOT OF HEROIN Jack Kerouac on Buddhist meditation Complex, by turns wonderful and awful, the beat writer Jack Kerouac is one of the handful of people responsible for bringing Zen into the popular English speaking imagination. Any number of people have struggled to contextualize Kerouac’s beatnik Buddhism. Some with more success than ..read more