joe..thank you for this email. and your thoughts..at present i am run off my feet...hubby's surprise 70th birthday party with 30 guests... sunday...i am very interested in what you have directed to me here and will follow through..thank you... another question: are you a devotee of stephen hawking?...i have a science friend who says it's all baloney..what is your take?
summer weather here...need to go to doc as well...sore when i take a deep breath, feel tired..bit of a cough..we will see many thanks again joe..talk soon.. cheers cousin joe. .merle Merle, I have given earlier a typical Zen devotee reply, perhaps, about the notion of "God" -- or what have you -- but I am not against the idea, nor do I screen out its importance -- in history and in the present -- to so many BILLIONS of people. A book I'm reading is excellent: Karen Armstrong has published many books, and I am only just lately finding her. I'm reading her: THE CASE FOR GOD (2009); Knopf; New York. It is a little historical. But for more history see her: A HISTORY OF GOD. The present book as I say is a little historically ordered, beginning at 30000 B.C.E.; then, progressing to the times 1500 C.E. to the present (and, I like to think, beyond). She is a thorough scholar, and a wonderful popularizer, too. I keep "her" on a shelf with the likes of Huston Smith (THE RELIGIONS OF MAN), and with my teacher Joe Campbell (many books). This is a fine book, Merle. See the chapter titles at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-God-Karen-Armstrong/dp/0307389804/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352424455&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+god#reader_0307389804 (click on the image of the book cover, and scroll inside the book to get to the several pages of the Table of Contents) I think you will like Karen's writing! And, ...more importantly, she will like YOU. --Joe PS An Autumn storm has come to the desert; there is the lightest drizzle; the desert releases lots of perfumes when it is moistened, and I am bathing in, and drinking-in these scents, now, with the sun just 30 minutes set. Creosote Bush: Mesquite; soil. I can't name the other scents. It is as good as the best Buddhist incense used to close Sesshin on the seventh and final day, during the Closing Ceremony. Well, on Ch'an retreats. Merle, *THIS* is my idea of the Holy: if God has anything to do with it, then all power to Him/Her. ;-) PPS Don't miss Rudolph Otto's book, THE IDEA OF THE HOLY. Merle!, you could read it in the original German: DAS HEILIGE (1917). > Merle Lester <merlewiitpom@...> wrote: > > why must it be one god?
