Check out my new baby. It is a white, Honda Shadow Spirit 750.

I know it’s wrong to fall in love with inanimate objects, but I just can’t help myself.  I think I’m becoming and objectophile!

“Put away your swords.”
–Jesus of Nazareth  (Matthew 26:52)

“Bring  your gun to church.”
– Pastor Ken Pagano of  Louisville, KY

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Ken Pagano, the pastor of the New Bethel Church in Louisville, KY, recently invited his congregation to bring their unloaded firearms into the house of worship to “celebrate our rights as Americans!” Yesterday’s bring-your-gun-to-church day, to which more than 200 people showed up, also featured “a $1 raffle of a handgun, firearms safety lessons and a picnic.” Pagano reportedly thought up the event “after some church members expressed concern about members of President Barack Obama administration’s views on gun control, though the president hasn’t moved to put new restrictions on ownership.” Since Obama’s election, there has been a boom in gun sales, stoked largely by a multi-million dollar misinformation campaign by the National Rifle Association.

Complements of Think Progress

For more than 30 years Yanni has been entertaining people around the world with his soothing Instrumental music.  His new CD, Voices is a departure from his past work, however.  In this new CD he has gathered some of the most talented vocalists from the next generation of musician to add lyrics to some of his greatest hits.
In this interview I join Nathan Pacheco and Chloe on their tour bus to talk about what is like to work with such a legend and to lend their voices to such a groundbreaking CD.

Listen Online • Sync with iPod

Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion, when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing— until there is only. . .the dance.

–Michael Jackson 1992

One of my favorite singers, Jay Brannan posted this tribute to Michael Jackson.  Take a listen.

Reverend Boudreaux was the part-time pastor of  the local Baptist Church and Pastor Thibodaux was the minister of the Covenant Church across the road.

They were both standing by the road, pounding a  sign into the ground, that read:

“The End is Near!!! Turn Your Self  around Now before It’s Too Late!”

As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out  his window and yelled, “You religious nuts!”

From the curve they heard screeching tires, and a big splash…

Boudreaux turns to Thibodaux and asks, “Do ya think maybe the sign should just say ‘Bridge Out’?”

From the San Francisco Examiner
Results of a study conducted at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, suggest that meditation is an effective way to improve sleep quality and depression. The findings were presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies on June 9, 2009.

The study involved 11 healthy individuals (ages 25 to 45) who had chronic insomnia. Participants were divided into two groups: one group was given sleep hygiene education and information on how to improve health through diet, exercise, and stress management. The other group also received sleep hygiene education and learned how to practice Kriya yoga, a form of meditation that focuses attention.

Kriya yoga meditation was chosen because Dr. Ramadevi Gourineni, who headed the study, believes that insomnia is a problem of hyperarousal in which individuals experience elevated measures of arousal throughout the day. In previous studies, Kriya yoga has been shown to reduce measures of arousal.

The insomnia patients who practiced meditation experienced improvements in total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, sleep quality, and depression.

According to the National Institutes of Health, about one-third of adults experience insomnia at times, and 10 percent have chronic insomnia.

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I live in San Francisco.  We are known for our sexual freedom and our willingness to accept just about any kinky past time you can think of.   And yet, what day is meaningful if you don’t learn something new?  It seems I can sleep soundly tonight knowing that my mind has once again expanded.

Today I read this report about an aide to conservative Pennsylvania state Sen. Jane Orie who has focused much of her attention on sex crimes.  Evidently, she didn’t need to look any further than her own office.   Her aide (and self descriped ‘hopeless romantic’), Alan David Berlin was arrested for soliciting “furry sex” from a minor on the internet. He was arraigned  in Harrisburg after running the following ad.

“I’m a Daddyfur and Caretaker and I am looking for a babyfur to be my mate and my companion in a long-term committed relationship. . . I am a hopeless romantic and very affectionate, freely giving hugs, scritches, cuddles and kisses.”
(learn more)

What is “furry sex” you might ask?  Don’t feel bad, I live in San Francisco and had to Google it too.    Basically, it involves dressing up like animals for fun and/or  sexual gratification.  (learn more) (Learn even more)

Now, I’m an open minded sort of guy, so whatever revs your engine is fine with me as long as it only involves consenting adults.  I don’t expect I will be attending a furry gathering anytime soon, but if the garden variety vanilla stuff stops working, who knows.    What I find interesting is that it is rarely the people with “San Francisco values” who get busted trolling around the internet looking for kinky sex with minors.

Once again, a universal truth has proven itself.  If you are going to make a name for yourself by attacking the sexuality of others, karma will find a way to kick you in the ass and you will know the kind of shame that makes you tuck your faux fur tail between your legs.

This week I gave Bob a big bowl full of narcissus bulbs to take to his office at the Fenn School.  It would be cheery, I thought, for him to have some flowers in February. In less than two hours after he had placed the bowl on the window side table, five eighth grade boys had stop by to ask him a math or scheduling question.  Each on had noticed the bowl.  And each one in remarkably similar phraseology, had asked him, “Why are you growing those onions in a bowl of rocks?”

Now I love a good laugh when I hear one—and that one is funny. But I also know that there are times—perhaps even extended periods of month or years – when we look over at what life has give us and see not narcissus bulbs, ready to emerge in all loveliness, but a bunch of unsightly onions in a bowl full of rocks.

If that is where you are, or where someone you love is, I want you to know that all beauty takes time to emerge.  All loveliness needs darkness to become formed.  All deep roots need rocky terrain to become so firmly established that what they support cannot be toppled.    And all of us have times in our lives when it doesn’t
matter WHO tells us that we are looking  at narcissus bulbs:  all we can see, or even meant to see, are those funny looking onions growing in a bowl of rocks.

To live in faith is to believe, even when you cannot justify it, that you are loved, that you are forming anew, and that beauty and right relationship will come forth—like the greening of rock—bound narcissus bulbs—as time goes by.  Hang on, keep forming, and oh, by the way, try to have a laugh or two along the way.

Written by The Rev. Lucinda Duncan, Parish Minister at the Follen Community Church, Unitarian Universalist,East Lexington, Massachusetts 

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Last night I went to see the movie “Away We Go” with my friend Brian.   The movie is the story of Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) who are pregnant and looking for a community in which to raise their child.  Their journey takes them around the country looking for “home”.    The movie is laugh out loud funny and so emotionally sweet.    The soundtrack is by one of my favorite artists, Alexi Murdoch, which adds to the movie.
I see a lot of movies, but it has been a long time since I enjoyed a movie as much as this one.

Watch the Trailer

My  Urban Mystic Study Guide is now in its second edition.  This new version is full of exercises, questions to contemplate, quotes from the book and a guide to starting a study group.  It’s also available in both PDF and Amazon Kindle Formats.

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