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Religion

Essays on faith, spirituality, religious traditions, and the search for meaning.

5 posts
A chromolithograph Masonic certificate depicting a layered allegorical landscape. At the top, the All-Seeing Eye radiates light from within a sunburst above a celestial temple building. Below it, a hilltop scene shows knights and horses beneath a starry night sky on the left and a rainbow with a rising sun on the right. In the centre, an arched inscription reads 'I Am That I Am. Exod. III:4,' framing a gateway marked with Masonic symbols including the letter G and Alpha and Omega. The surrounding landscape includes biblical scenes: workers building structures at lower left, Noah's Ark on floodwaters at right, and the Tabernacle in the distance. Blank lines throughout indicate spaces for a member's name and dates to be filled in.

Manifestation, the Law of Attraction, Cancer and Abuse

Examining the dark side of manifestation and Law of Attraction movement: its New Thought origins, cultural appropriation of Eastern and Indigenous practices, gender dynamics, and the hidden cruelty of victim blaming cancer survivors and abuse victims.
A painting depicting a family of three traveling at night through dark terrain under a moonlit, star-scattered sky. On the left, a man in a yellow t-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers carries a backpack and looks back over his shoulder with an expression of watchful urgency. Beside him, a woman in jeans and sandals carries a young child on her back in a purple wrap and holds a pink plastic bag in her hand; both she and the child look directly at the viewer with solemn, steady expressions. All three figures are crowned with Byzantine-style halos, golden circles rimmed in red, aligning the family visually with sacred iconography. Dark hills rise in the background. The painting's style blends folk art and religious icon traditions.

How and Why I Believe in God: The Ballad of Tragic Theism

My testimony, from Dawkins on an iPod Shuffle down a back alley, through Buddhist libraries and a children's hospice, to Matthew's Gospel in a break room chair. My case for tragic theism: a God who creates, risks, makes mistakes, grieves them, and does not stop.
Oil painting of a rustic countryside inn scene. A thatched-roof whitewashed cottage with two brick chimneys serves as a wayside inn, identified by a hanging bell sign on a wooden post. Several figures in 18th-century rural clothing gather outside — some standing and conversing near a haycart, others seated by the inn's entrance with a dog. A wooded hillside rises behind the building under a partly cloudy sky. A small stream or puddle is visible in the foreground. The painter's signature appears in the lower right corner.

Earning My Keep

On the poets who found different terrors inside the phrase 'earn my keep'—Jeong Ho-Seung, Brecht, Heather McHugh, Kim Hyesoon—and the theological dispute over whether grace can be deserved, turning thirty in borrowed time, and the nuthatches outside who do not know the feeder was set out for them.
An ornate, hand-colored illustration in an old European style shows a person standing in a grove of stylized palm-like trees, surrounded by symbolic emblems and text. Above, a radiant triangle containing an eye (the “all-seeing eye”) shines through clouds. Each tree bears oval crests and circular plaques with letters, Roman numerals, and heraldic symbols. The central figure gestures outward while holding a shield-shaped panel with decorative script.

STORYTELLING Part Two: The (Literal) Magic of Writing

Grammar/Glamour/Grimoire. 言霊 & heka. Spelling & spellcasting. The Word. Writing is generative, not descriptive. Cultures across millennia have understood that words conjure reality. Writing conjures, symbols activate the brain, serving as telepathy across distance and time.
A young woman in traditional red and white Asian attire stands with hands pressed together in prayer position (anjali mudra) at a temple altar. She is centered among three bronze incense burners filled with burning incense sticks, with smoke rising around her. The atmospheric scene shows ornate temple architecture with decorative murals in the blurred background.

More Than One Way: On Ritual, Morality, and the Darkness Beyond Knowing

What is the meaning of life? Is there more than one correct answer? I've decided to take a rather long-winded exploration of how different cultures approach the sacred, the dead, and the transcendent, suggesting that multiple paths can lead to the same fundamental truths.
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