Doctors and Medicinemen

 Rocks and Yucca. (Tomasito photo)

"Doctors study what man has learned, I pray to understand what man has forgotten."  

Vernon Cooper, quoted in Wisdomkeepers, by Steve Wall and Harvy Arden.

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Minor Liberation

Brother Joe--the retired Lutheran minister and missionary-- recently sent me a book: "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", by Marcus J. Borg.


Mr. Borg is a professor and historian of the Christian tradition. Brother Joe calls him "a really outstanding Bible scholar".


Borg makes a very good case for some de-mythification of Christianity.


From his historic and linguistic research it  is clear that many of the iconic details of the old Jesus story may be simply borrowings from other mythologies current in the first century Mediterranean locale of the story.


There were really no wise men following stars, no angelic choirs, no virgin birth-- in fact not much of anything that many people think of as God's Word Truth. It was all made up by well-intentioned writers  to make the Gospel story more interesting.

Borg suggests that Jesus was probably a "spirit person" similar to native American sages like Black Elk and Crazy Horse or maybe Edgar Casey. Jesus was a human person concerned with spirit, compassion and sincerity and breaking down some of the class barriers of his day.   Jesus probably did not see himself as a Son of God born of a virgin, etc.


I know there are a LOT of knee-jerk "Christians" who will be totally appalled and furious about the ideas  so coolly laid out in this little book since it strikes at the roots of the Santa Clausy Jesus mythology so beloved by the merchants of Christmastime and the  churchianity and the bibilotry so prevalent in the One Way protestant groups--not to mention the bone-conservative Catholic and Orthodox folks.


No fear though. I have a strong hunch that the Christianity Juggernaut will keep on a-rolling for some time to come--the Borgs and so forth will not cause even a miniscule  bumpitty-bump of it's mindlessly squashing  wheels.

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Flagstaff Revisited

 Old Town Alley, Flagstaff, Arizona. (Tomas photo)

Yes, we visited Flagstaff, Arizona on our recent "Journey to the East".

For some unknown reason Flagstaff figures fairly prominently in my life journey and I don't know why, but  I can't seem to get far enough away. 

I somehow always manage to return for a look-see every few years.

Many, many years ago I even studented myself in this northern Arizona town for a two dose period--long enough to get a "master's" degree in English. At the time I didn't see the joke of getting an advanced degree in English in this out-of-the-way place so very far from England.


Flagstaff  was a lot smaller then and Northern Arizona University--which is now a pretty big deal--was then very small potatoes.


To make ends meet, I had a job as a night clerk at a motel out of town to the east. The motel was called The Crown and it was fairly new. Oddly enough it still exists but is very much changed as is the entire scene. The motel has a different name and they have added a restaurant (called the Crown Restaurant) and they have paved the parking lot--but the old cowboy-style Museum Club is still in business next door--still serving the town's drunks as it did in those long-ago days--though I suppose they are a new crop of drunks.


We found "Old Main"--the old main building of the university -- still  standing.

I used to pick up my mail there and the NAU  administrative offices there as I suppose some still are--but the important new buildings of the university are now being built further and further away from what used to be the Flagstaff  town center on old Route 66. In fact to reach the newest buildings is quite a hike for the few pedestrians who might still walk from town as we did.


If you are the grasping type--hoping to re-experience something good from the past--all it takes is a short trip to some well-remembered site which you have not visited for years-- to realize  very clearly that nothing--but nothing--stays the same and that "this exists only because of that" as the Buddhists say.

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Authentic Change

"Authentic change always means stepping into the unknown."

"The Evolution of Consciousness" Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine, MD, Swami Ajaya

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Truth is

"...you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught."

Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

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Musical Thought

 Musical Thought. (Tomasito photo)

"Therefore the music of a well-ordered age is calm and cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted. The music of a decaying state is sentimental and sad, and its government is imperiled."

Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

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Good Words 4

 Good Words Four. (Tomasito photo)

"Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world; it  is appeased by love. This is an eternal law."

The Buddha


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