an orthodox fellow on twix (Nathaniel R. Clark; he is writing a book on the symbolism of bread, which is an interesting topic to me) made a series of posts about the imagination that naturally led me to memories of my time in the orthodox trenches, fighting imaginary devils, and thoughts about oneness and tradition, ...

I am very struck by the historically-recorded lives of people who were (to some genuine extent) Prophets, and who also went-on to found a church, or analogous spiritual organization.

Two that I feel I know pretty well are Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the Mormon who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day ...

I have often argued, in recent years, that the key instruction in the IV Gospel is to "follow" Jesus, and that the best encapsulation is (probably) the Good Shepherd section of this Gospel.

But I suggest an exercise - which takes about ten minutes: Here is the IV Gospel - do a word search on "follow, and read ...

I had a very long dream about an dark-web forum site which was apparently used by virtually everyone in Taiwan but which I had just discovered. When you signed up, you were given a unique user ID, which was a very long numerical string (20-some digits). You could associate any number of different usernames with this ...

The Carpenter, a bit confusedTo hear the phrase the Walrus used,Said, "Though I'm sure you'd think I shouldKnow all about the care of wood,

It never crossed my mind before!I've only ever waxed the floor.No, even in a house with woodenCeilings, I confess I shouldn't Wax 'em. Just as too much polishMakes a wall look ...

Many people who think they believe in God actually believe in a projection of their own mind. On the other hand, there are those who do perceive something of the reality of God within themselves and these are the only true believers because they believe in a reality not an idea. Consequently, their approach to the ...

One of the brief dreams recorded before the main course in "Danny John Malkovich, you need to replace the watchman on your roof" was this:

In a later segment, I was in what I understood to be an "alternate timeline" parallel to our own. I was navigating a series of wooden platforms built high in the trees, ...

If the verities of our spiritual life are things like our-selves and God and divine creation; then by contrast politics is ultimately arbitrary. In the world as it is now, and ourselves as we are now; wherever and however we draw boundaries around our categories, there is a strong element of arbitrary imposition. ...

A big, maybe lethal, problem with almost all of Christian theology, is the absolute conviction that there can be nothing new under the sun.

So that (for instance) because we have inherited an either/or dichotomy - such that knowledge or values are either subjective or objective - that must be all there is, and ...

The cultural era (commencing in Western Europe in the late 1700s) known as Romanticism, is usually described in terms of being a negative reaction; partly against the newly dominant "rationalism" and scientism - reducing divine creation to a contrivance of clockwork wheels; and then fuelled by the beginnings of ...

"The time has come," the Walrus said,"While we yet live, and they are dead,To talk of all the things that weShould like them not to hear or see,The things we durst not write or speakLest they should listen in or peek,But naught of that need now we fear,For dead men neither see nor hear.Our willingness to speak ...

Looking at the glade a distracted eye would not know there was a conference going on. And it wasn’t only because the master of ceremonies always started his speech way before most guests had arrived. He was a stickler for punctuality, whereas most of the invitees knew to get there only after he had gotten the ...

The following is an excerpt from an incisive comment Dr. Charlton added to a recent post of mine:

People are absolutely stuck in their assumptions that either reality is objective and out-there and to which we ought (both expediently and rationally to conform): or else (the only other option allowed) reality is ...

Deep theorists of biological evolution since Schrodinger, have (by ignoring his speculations on negentropy) mostly assumed that it is a parasitic process; which exploits already-existing order.

This is inevitable in an atheistic context, where divine creation is rejected.

In effect; because entropic change (and ...

​The traditional Christian insistence—fully endorsed and promulgated by their respective churches and supposed metaphysical assumptions—that they fully comprehend the significance of personal discernment to distinguish the baby from the bathwater leaves much to be desired.

Case in point—AI. ...

I had a brief verbal dream in which someone mentioned a musician called Carlos Suede.

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In a later segment, I was in what I understood to be an "alternate timeline" parallel to our own. I was navigating a series of wooden platforms built high in the trees, accompanied by people who appeared to be standard-fantasy ...

since switching to LEDs, people’s lightbulb moments are flickery

there’s a flaw in the strategy of judging people by their fruits. many don’t have any.

let’s say there’s a retard club. a genius comes, proves the club is indeed for retards and saves people from it. then, many ...

People writing (online) often claim to be disengaged from mass media (in which I include social media) - or having a "fast" from it. But in reality this (much lake fasting from food) this does not mean a total cessation of contact, but actually means being selective and cutting down the amount of what is consumed. ...

I noticed the phonetic similarity of CBGB to heebie-jeebies and wondered if the latter term might have its origins in anti-Jewish slurs, so I googled it. It doesn't, apparently. It was coined by Barney Google cartoonist Billy DeBeck -- who also gave the language hotsy-totsy and googly eyes, and who is thought to have ...

The appointment of the new Archbishop of Canterbury is so absurd as to be almost comic. It must surely be the final nail in the coffin of the Church of England and seems like a deliberate act of self-harm, proving beyond all doubt that this branch of Christianity is only concerned with social justice ideology with ...

Is it a contradiction that modern people are so aggressively moralistic; while rejecting purpose, meaning and personal significance in reality?

We live in a social world of continual, inescapable, aggressive moralizing; despite that almost everybody professes to reject and disbelieve in any basis for morality in ...

Knowing when to start something is a vital part of life. The same applies to knowing when to stop.

Regular readers of this blog know I have spent the better part of nine years renovating, updating, and remodeling the house I purchased in northwestern Hungary shortly after moving here.

It’s been quite a ...

Just putting this out there, since both the name Amber and the sun have been in the sync-stream.

Yesterday, the preschoolers acted out a Chinese legend associated with the upcoming Moon Festival: the story of how one day ten suns rose in the sky, and the great archer Houyi saved humanity by shooting down nine of ...

Inspired by "Rolling the bones" and "Sympathy and dice," I'm trying a different version of my reading with my eyes shut experiments. I have a dice cup-and-tray set that looks like this:

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You put the cup over the tray, shake it a few times, and then remove the cup to see what you rolled. Instead of ...

I started my "Tom Petty death sync" post by mentioning that I had been listening to "mostly New Wave kind of stuff." At the time, I was also thinking about the Blue Green Crystal Ball, which I typically abbreviate to BGCB in my handwritten notes. Today I noticed the similarity of BGCB to CBGB, the New York club that ...

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Are you inspired?

As the Church of England appoints yet another mediocre middle manager as its Chief Executive - indeed, aside from being called "Sarah"; this one is as close to an archetypal Karen is is humanly possible.

(Even within the National Health Service - that most bureaucratic of ...

This morning I went to the local 7-Eleven to pick up something my wife had ordered. (In Taiwan it is common to have parcels delivered to a convenience store rather than directly to one's home.) One of the other customers there was wearing a T-shirt that said "If only I had a coffee and a donut!" Taking this as a sign, ...

I noticed that the songs featured in my last two posts -- "Gimme Sympathy" by Metric in "Rolling the bones" and "You Don't Know How It Feels" by Tom Petty in "Tom Petty death sync" -- have a lot in common. For starters, sympathy literally means knowing how it feels to be someone else. There's also a strange ...

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Saint Patrick magically duels a Druid

In the Roman and post-Roman era; the early Christian missionaries to the British Isles were highly successful at converting the Druidic pagans.

This may suggest a basic religious compatibility; such that Christianity may have seemed like a natural extension ...

To become a Christian is to climb a ladder; but after we have arrived at Christianity, we should kick away the ladder.

Christianity is Not, therefore, some kind of an elaborate and specific scaffolding that our faith necessarily stands upon; Not a particular form of platform-support that must be assembled and ...