Category: Faith & Spirituality
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different wrapper
Once I knew a man who was, at one point, discerning a life as a Theravadan monk. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the various strains of Buddhism, allow me to explain: the Theravada School is perhaps the earliest form of Buddhism practiced in the world today. I won’t claim that it goes…
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A Prayer Overheard
This prayer was said long enough ago that I don’t mind posting about it here. I was in—it’s safe to say—a period of incredible spiritual desolation. A friend of mine, who I hadn’t seen in years, messaged me asking me to pray for her. I won’t say what for, but she was having a very…
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a tale of dual belonging
Finding religion in adulthood, when you weren’t raised with anything in particular, is a strange experience. I haven’t met many people like that. It seems most stories are about people leaving religion, not finding it. Moreover, most of the people who have a religion were raised with it, and there wasn’t the experience of wrestling…
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get real
Rick and Morty is one of my favourite shows—definitely in the top-three—and this is why. It’s like Doctor Who on crack—I love it! Amidst the ridiculousness and the sci-fi level grossness of it all (not to mention the adult humour), it also succeeds in grappling with some interesting ideas. Case in point is this soliloquy…
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dead or alive?
As a kid, I had this little wood carving of a man crouched over in a cross-legged position, appearing to cry into his hands. I was told it was called the weeping Buddha. I don’t know what happened to that carving, but I came across another as I was browsing a store some two years…
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philosophy without religion (& vice versa)
I’ve often said that if I ever did a PhD, I would want to do it in Asia. From what (admittedly little) research I’ve done, their universities often seem to combine their departments of philosophy and religion. In fact, I recall reading somewhere (I think in A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Feng Youlan?)…
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Kiviuq
In grade three or four (something like that), for one of our classes, each of us had to give a presentation on one of the provinces or territories. I chose Nunavut, which is Canada’s most recently established province or territory, only becoming official in the 1990s. Why did I pick it? To be honest, I…
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zen & tidying
Earlier this year, I did the Kon-Mari method of tidying. You may have heard of it from that book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo. Funnily enough, I’m not sure I ever embraced the method fully. I have to accept that I didn’t set aside a day to make an “event” of…
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Atheology, or Theology for Unbelievers
Theology is a strange discipline—that much I’ve learned in the two-ish years that I’ve studied it. One the one hand, I have found that theology can easily become, if you’ll forgive me, philosophically lazy, particularly when dealing in the theologies of revealed religions. I say this not to disparage it, but simply as an observation…