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I visited my uncle in Malda last week, and he tends to fit the stereotype of the wise India elder. During our first conversation (I tend to think of them more as lessons, but…) he said, “Man evolved from monkeys, yes? Every day I pray that God will make man back into a monkey.” TheContinue reading “Practice and theory collide during a traffic jam”

Part of the reason I’m spending most of my sabbatical in India is in the hopes of better understanding tribal theologies and how they might intersect with liberation theology in the United States. (To some, this might seem a little anachronistic—I didn’t realize, but some of my colleagues think of liberation theology as a fadContinue reading “naga theology?”

I am fairly certain I misspelled that particular god, but you know how certain themes keep appearing? I was very excited to have come to Kolkata coincidentally just in time for Durga Puja (Durga is the goddess of good over evil). I came in September 2006 with my parents specifically because neither my mother norContinue reading “Belated Subho Viswaskorma puja!”

The art in Madrid sticks out as the most remarkable part of my trip. I’ve seen a number of Spanish artists out of context, but seeing them together, in the context of the land that shaped them, the art made sense in a new way.   In particular, I knew virtually nothing about Goya’s blackContinue reading “flashback–art in Madrid–la quinta del sordo”

(written Wednesday, posted Thursday….this might be how most of my posts go from here on out) Just before I arrived in India, I read Malcolm Gladwell’s *Outliers*. (Note of warning: don’t read the chapter on cultural reasons that planes crash WHILE FLYING OVER THE OCEAN….I kept praying, “For all their faults, God, make sure thatContinue reading “First day in India”

Last night I became a member of the Wellington Society. I know, sounds alarming, right? Well, my Time Out guide suggested a couple of slightly offbeat tour options, and described the Wellington Society in these terms: If you miss your mad British uncle and want a surrogate who really knows his history, join the WellingtonContinue reading “the best ever tour of Madrid”

How alarming and humbling to stand in a square so alive, where bullfights and executions competed for most popular attraction a few hundred years ago. I´ve been reading a wonderful book with excerpts of people´s experiences in Madrid over the last 500 years. One British visitor in the late 1700s complained that the sight ofContinue reading “Plaza Mayor”

This is a picture from Rachel’s camera of part of the group as we were leaving Iona on the ferry to Fionnphort (before the bus ride across Mull to Craignure before the ferry to Oban before the bus to Glasgow–this is a day-long affair). As is always the case with retreats, the people make orContinue reading “final reflection on Iona (for now)”

I was really inspired by this cross in a tucked away corner of the Abbey. It made me feel connected to my home church, which is discerning its call to be a church oriented around a vision of peace. It was a reminder to me of how big that vision is, even though we’re tryingContinue reading “A tie between Iona and First Christian Church of Oakland”

In an interview in Time magazine in 1948, Iona founder George MacLeod said, “As feudalism was the earthly seeding-bed of Thomas Aquinas, as emergent capitalism was the forcing house of Calvin, so our scientific, political, economic structure, without precedent, whose birth is our present agony, will be the seeding-bed of new discoveries of God’s approachContinue reading “An Iona ethic?”