. . . Read excerpts from the book by clicking its cover on amazon.com
Preface
At the suggestion of and with the technical help of my son Jeremiah, I became a blogger (wondering what one was) in 2004, recording daily quotes and reflections, beginning in September and going the year’s cycle of days through August 2005. As you will see, there are quotes from all over and reflections on quotes, mostly mine. Daily I posted the reflections to an e-mail list as well as to a weblog, which has 365 archives as I consider volume II.
It has been a corporate effort. As many as fifty colleagues have sent quotes to me: especially Randy Williams, Beret Griffith, Herman Greene, David Rebstock, and Lynda Cock. Others I gleaned from colleagues’ e-mails, writings, and shared readings. And, of course, colleagues throughout history up to the present offered quotes: especially Lao Tzu, Rumi, Kierkegaard, Emily Dickinson, Schweitzer, D. H. Lawrence, Tagore, Kazantzakis, Bonhoeffer, Gandhi, de Chardin, Buber, Hesse, Tillich, Fromm, Alan Watts, MLK, Jr., Joseph Mathews, Joesph Campbell, Thomas Berry, Spong, Castenada, Gene Marshall, Sam Keen, Thich Nhat Hanh, Brian Stanfield, D. J. Duncan, Mary Oliver, Swimme, Wilber, Andrew Cohen – on and on. There is so much wisdom in our common universal history to be shared and reflected upon.Why do this? For others’ journeys, sure, from family and friends to utter strangers around the globe, trusting that a word here or there will make a difference in their day and in their life journeys. I hear from some of them daily, either personally or through their comments on the weblog. This contact helps keep me going in this spirit exercise and enterprise.
And I do it to feed my own soul for my spirit journey, of course. I had been experimenting with daily meditation, off and on, for most of my life. This way is the most satisfying yet, for a couple of reasons. It keeps me at attention to hear and see, like a reporter looking for a good story. Also, I have a local-global network of dialogue. In religious parlance, this makes my solitary exercise a corporate one, a community one – even if virtual, I can see many faces. It all adds up to a sense of mission beyond myself as I do my solitary reflection for my own journey. Can’t beat that. As I begin listing another year of quotes and reflections, I thank the whole lot of you, creation itself, and spirit, that is always present and meeting us in our particular/universal relationships and in the events and reflections of our daily lives.Have another great year. But how can you keep from it with billions of neutrinos and abounding grace, as the quotes will describe?
