Crossing Nebraska

How many mass shootings have occurred since the one in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater that first inspired this post some five and a half years ago? How many lives have been violently snuffed out? How many families have been destroyed? How many people have been forever scarred by the trauma that they were lucky enough to have survived, but not so lucky as to have avoided altogether? Some brave individuals are counting, and trying to do what they can to persuade hearts and minds to embrace meaningful change. Many others seem to have just grown weary of the reality of massacre after massacre, and the repetitive and ineffectual discussion that ensues. I'm updating this post in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. Perhaps I want to ascertain which group I still belong to, the one trying to affect change, or the one that has grown numb. Has the worldview that I articulated below changed at all? Do I have anything to add? God, The Buddha, and The Joker I’m ...

My previous post ended with a provisional definition of a spiritual journey as “any enduring spiritual practice undertaken with the intention that it bring about transformation.” At the time I left largely unexplored this thing called transformation , so that will be the focus of today’s post. I’ll provide some theoretical context later on, but for now let’s begin by diving right into the words of two of the most revered figures in their respective religious traditions: Thomas Merton, a modern day Trappist monk (now deceased), and Dogen Zenji, a 13 th century Japanese monk and founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism. Thomas Merton describes the Christian experience of transformation as an emptying out of personal ego from the vessel that is this human form so that God can inhabit it to the fullest. Merton (1968) writes: This dynamic of emptying and of transcendence accurately defines the transformation of the Christian consciousness in Christ. It is a kenotic transformation,...