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Homage To A Sorcerer

Carlos Castaneda has died. There aren’t many to bear witness to or for him, because he didn’t allow many witnesses. One met him by invitation, usually, and even that was more fluke than not. Those invited were of all sorts. I happened to be one, for reasons that weren’t clear to me and probably aren’t important. Perhaps I was called to be a witness?

The Disappearing God

I don’t mistake self-punishment for devotion anymore. I am a born-again believer in lovingkindness. I don’t waste my time with a God who leaves me. My God lies down with me and tells me I am beauty and grace incarnate. My God celebrates me as gloriously as I celebrate Him. I worship a God who believes in me.

Jesus Incognito

Language Of Devotion

A Conversation With David James Duncan

Articulating life — converting inarticulate being into words — is definitely one of the great joys of being a writer. For me, the great frustration of being a writer is the same as what frustrates me in my spiritual life: my own stupidity, ignorance, and inability at times to perceive and give voice to the wonder and truth that is always there.

Sunbeams

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground.

William James

Saved

One night when I was sixteen, my father got out of bed, went into the living room, and fell to the floor. He was a big man, and from my own bed I heard the noise and felt the house shake and heard my mother call out, “Roy! Roy! My word!”

Sunbeams

Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that comes only from whipped cream.

Katherine Mansfield

Sunbeams

Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today, and that’s why everything is screwy.

Joseph Campbell

Sunbeams

The media transforms the great silence of things into its opposite.

Michel de Certeau

Sabbath