What to do?

So have you noticed I haven't been round these parts for a while? I'm not loving it, I must say. Turns out I haven't figured a way to help pay for two boys to go to college while working on The Heathen fulltime.

I never set out to write a blog. Several years ago, when I was confused by the believers at war with each other all over the globe, I set out to learn what each of the seven* major religious traditions teaches its newcomers, its potential converts. I was no longer willing to remain on the sidelines, ignorant.

I am still confused and I am still unwilling to just let it go. But I began this blog when it became apparent to me that this task was going to take at least three more years and it seemed a shame to go on that long alone, without sharing the ride, without company and feedback. I guess I also had some hope that, by going this public, I might figure out a way to support The Heathen and my sons' college educations....not so easy to do when allowing advertizing seems wrong and other potential support eludes me.

So I write this to say that I've taken a new job, one that will take most of the summer to sort out. I'll catch The Heathen up to where I actually am - "finished" Hinduism and Buddhism - but I am going to take the next couple of months to consider whether or not to continue with a public blog or to take it down and continue it in private until my effort is complete.




* as identified by Huston Smith in his seminal work The World's Religions.

Deciding to do a blog wasn't easy....

...so it's taken me some time to make that decision. I've thought long and hard about whether or not to let others read what I'm thinking about as I do it. The concerns are obvious. This requires a lot of quiet, a disregard for intruding voices and, for me, a willingness to possibly embarrass myself. The benefit of a blog is less obvious. I fully committed to this adventure in early 2006 and took my first steps into a place of worship that summer, promising myself I'd keep a journal as I went along. The reason to write about this is, first, to keep a record for myself, my lab notes, if you will. The reason to share those notes is to be of service.

I'm not the only person wondering what's going on in a world at war over faith. I'm not the only person with inadequate knowledge of spiritual traditions other than my own. I'm not the only person who isn't comfortable with where I "fit" spiritually. I'm not the only person like this who has had a hard time when they began raising children. And, although I've now found a way to devote my time to answering these questions for myself, I would have loved to have read something like this when I didn't have that ability.

So, rather than wait until I'm at the end of who knows what, I'm going out and inviting anyone who wants to come along to come. I'll make a lot of mistakes and I ask, in advance, that you have patience for my stumbling process and forgive me. It often takes me many drafts and rewrites to correct grammar, typos, and factual errors so this will, indeed, be a work in process.

As I made the decision to do this blog some time after I started, you'll find almost all of my journal entries up to the present posted here in a few weeks or months. As I write this, I have actually "finished" (by the terms of this project) Hinduism and I'm most of the way through Buddhism but only some of my notes are ready to be posted while others are still in chicken scratch form on various pieces of paper. It'll take sometime for this blog to catch up to where I am at present. Needless to say all of the material in this blog is copyrighted; please invite others to read it here, anyone you can think of who might be interested.

My profile has more on what I'm doing and why.

About comments... I'm going to try my best not to respond to any comments while I'm in the middle of doing this, (I've had a hard time getting past my self-consciousness even while alone in my room so I'm afraid of its return) but I would deeply appreciate reading your thoughts and comments especially once I'm through and it's time to consider whether or not I should try to collect all of this into book form so please send them along. I'm saving them all.

Sometimes I do not identify people by their names, especially when I’ve encountered them in retreats or other places where people wouldn’t expect someone to write about them.

Finally, I really don't know any other way to do this to keep things in order so the posting date is just that, the date the post was put up. At the bottom of the posts, you'll find the dates the events took place.

I am really grateful that you're interested...