Tao of Christ

Sitting by a lake reading and basking in the Presence of God.

Beyond the Sacred Page One of our favorite spots is on the shore of Lake Chocorua within sight of the summer house of American philosopher and psychologist William James (who was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s godson). Sometimes I will read his The Varieties of Religious Experience. Other times I will read the Psalms, another po...

In my blog today I am reflecting on Bible reading.

Being Read by the Bible The problem with all those approaches was that they are all self-centered. Their weakness lay in the one doing the reading. It was always me reading the Bible. Whenever I read the Bible, there I was. However often I read the Bible, the “I” was always the one reading it. And I was always messing ...

Today in my blog I am pondering our personal and spiritual identity.

I'm Nobody! Who are You? The poem is often interpreted as an ode to anonymity by the notoriously reclusive poet. It’s message resonates today with those who do not like our celebrity-obsessed culture that has produced internet influencers, television “personalities,” and “reality TV stars” who are famous for nothi...

Someone asked me directions the other day, and this is what I told them.

Asking Directions Decades ago it was quite common for me to be asked for directions by motorists in town many times during the summer and autumn. I was often tempted to reply with the anecdotal response, “You can’t get there from here” or “If I was going there, I wouldn’t start from here.” But I always bi...

In my blog today I am reflecting on the assassination attempt against the former president and the story of Malchus in the gospels.

The Lesson of the Right Ear It was no accident that the would-be assassin got dressed that morning in a tee shirt advertising a YouTube channel that promotes guns. He was making a statement. But I doubt that this fact will convert anyone to the need for guns to be “well-regulated” as the second amendment says.  

This is what true spirituality looks like in the Holy Land.

Opinion | Meet the Followers of Martin Luther King Jr. in the West Bank These Palestinians say Arabs and Jews can live in peace.

Today in my blog I am wondering how chipmunks are getting into our screened porch.

Parable of the Chipmunk I was sitting here on my screened porch this morning and saw a chipmunk run OUT of my living room and onto the porch. Not INTO the house, but OUT OF it!  Who knows how long he has been in the house? Minutes, hours, days? Perhaps he was visiting with the mice in our dining room. 

In my blog I am pondering the protests on college campuses.

The Times Are A-Changin' At the time we were not old enough to vote against the politicians who were sending us to war. (Draft age was 18 and voting age was 21 until 1971.) So we made our voices heard the only way we could. The same thing can be said of the civil rights movement of that era. If you aren’t allowed to vote,...

In my blog today I am pondering what penguins can teach us about faith.

Penguin Spirituality It makes me wonder what evolutionary urge leads them to perform such an act of courage. It also immediately made me think of spirituality. Speak of a leap of faith! This is not the safe religion of traditional Christianity. This is a leap into the unknown. Spirituality at its best is a dive into the...

In my blog today I am talking about going to church while on vacation.

Vacation Time Religion We attend worship in Florida during our annual spring vacation. Because we are in one location for an extended period, we try to find one church we can return to every Sunday. This year I did an internet search of local churches and found one that looked like it might fit the bill. We tried it on Pa...

On this day before Palm Sunday, I am already pondering Easter in my blog.

Adventures in Entropy So this fall we decided to purchase a new-to-us (used) vehicle. That ought to solve the problem! Then, of course, someone dented our front fender within three months. Our “new” car now looks old. We never found out who hit it. The previous year the internet at the condo failed. After lots of fid...

In my blog today I am pondering freedom - both political and spiritual.

Escape from Freedom Embracing freedom is healthy and courageous. Yet many people seek to escape from freedom by means of psychological escape mechanisms. Fromm identified three main mechanisms: automaton conformity, authoritarianism and destructiveness.  

In my blog today I am sharing my Lenten discipline of reading and rewriting the Psalms.

Rewriting the Psalms The idea for this project came from a book that my wife is reading, entitled Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness by Nan Merrill. I have not read the book myself. That is intentional. I do not want to be influenced by her versions of the psalms. Anyway, the idea of rewriting psalms is not....

I am reflecting on impermanence this morning.

A Ribbon of Light I used to take pictures like this back when I was a photographer for my high school newspaper and yearbook. Usually the subject was just a friend writing a word with a flashlight. Often in such photos there is a blur of the person visible in the background, almost like a ghost. But if you do it corr...

In my blog today I am reflecting on partaking of gluten free communion.

Gluten Free Worship Yesterday was the first time I came to the Lord’s Table gluten free. Our church has had a gluten free option for communion for a long time, including during the time I served as the pastor here years ago. But I had never partaken of the gluten free wafers. Last Sunday I did.  

I am pondering the news about church decline today.

Why Conservative Churches are Declining Baptisms (which are Southern Baptists’ statistic of choice to assess how they are doing) are less than half what they were at the turn of the century. This happened during the same time that theological conservatives grew in power and influence in the SBC. Likewise membership has been decreasing. ...

Today I am reflecting spiritually on voting in the New Hampshire presidential primary.

Voting Lightly I finally settled on a person I could vote for without holding my nose. Now I am waiting to hear the results of the New Hampshire primary, although I suspect I already know the answer to that question. I also suspect I know how the general election will turn out. But I can’t be sure. A lot can hap...

One of my favorite spiritual songs

'Holy Now' by Peter Mayer Peter Mayer performs "Holy Now" on WDVX's Blue Plate Special. For more information on Peter Mayer, visit http://petermayer.net/. Find WDVX online at http://w...

I am pondering the biblical and modern depictions of Jesus today.

Looking For Jesus I am reading through the four New Testament gospels for the umpteenth time this year, this time reading only the words spoken by Jesus, the so-called “red letters.” In his words I see many other Jesuses. The one I am most attracted to is Jesus as Wisdom Teacher. Jesus as Spiritual Teacher echoes...

Was Jesus fat?

Fat Jesus? That victory for historicity got me thinking about all the other false depictions of Jesus. As an overweight person, I notice that Jesus doesn’t look like me. (Note my tongue in my cheek) The adult Jesus is always pictured as trim and handsome. The popular television series The Chosen is the most ...

I am making a New Year resolution. Here it is:

A Red Letter Resolution I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions. After seventy three years of failing to keep these promises to myself, I don’t trust myself any longer. I have come to realize that I have no real control over whether the resolutions will continue beyond the early weeks of the year. The ego makes t...

In this Christmas post, I am pondering the similarities between the Christian/Hebrew term Emmanuel and the Hindu/Sanskrit term Namaste. If you are interested you can find my blog at this link:

Namaste, Emmanuel I have sung this simple song in church countless times since it came out in 1976. It was written that year by Robert McGee, who at the time was an associate pastor at The King's Temple Church in Seattle, Washington.

Every Advent I read W. H. Auden’s poem “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio.” In my blog today I am an reflecting upon a few lines in the section entitled Advent, especially the line that reads "O where is that immortal and nameless Centre from which our points of Definition and death are all equi-distant?"

If you are interested in what I have to say, you can find the post at this link;

The Immortal and Nameless Centre The poem was written during the Second World War and is long: 1,500 lines and over 50 pages.  It was designed to be set to music, but as far as I know the music was never completed. The poem consists of a series of monologues that are spoken by characters, choruses, and a narrator. Each year a diff...

In my blog today I am pondering poltical and social ethics from a spiritual perspective.

Not To Oppose Evil Is Itself Evil After giving a list of historic church-sponsored terrorism (“the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the history of American slavery, the attempted genocide against Native Americans and the oppression of women”) he says: “All these evils are or were firmly backed by biblical theology — at lea...

In my most recent blog post I contemplate the fictional nature of our lives, I invite you to read it at this link:

More Than Fiction In discovering they are not real, something changes. It says, “Discovering they are fictional characters somehow gave them wills of their own.” They begin to make decisions for themselves apart from the book plots. Characters from various books band together to find “The World Where the Books ...

Last month I was not able to take communion. The experience gave me a lot of food for thought. I am writing about this in my blog today:

Banned from Communion The following morning I was scheduled for a colonoscopy. We all know how pleasant the prep for that is! The instructions made it clear that I was to eat no food and drink nothing red or purple on the day before the medical procedure. Strangely enough I did not consider how that was going to affect m...

In my blog today I am writing about loving and losing books.

Losing My Library In seventh grade I struggled in Ancient History class. To keep from failing the class, the teacher said I could read books for extra credit. Each book earned me one extra point added to my grade average. I recall sitting for hours in our finished basement reading about the ancient cultures of the Me...

Today in my blog I am reflecting on Frost’s poem “Mending Wall.” If you are interested in my thoughts you can read the post here:

Mending Wall Revisited Robert Frost begins his poem Mending Wall with those words. I think about this poem every spring when I repair the wall that borders our property. In my case it is not “frozen-ground-swell” that is the culprit. Neither is the problem “elves,” as Frost suggests later in the poem. For me it is...

In my blog today I am praising silence. It is entitled "A Whispering God."

A Whispering God This tribe had a deity named Antaku, known as the Whisperer. When the elders of the tribe needed to know the Divine will, they would go into the jungle and spend days just listening. “Listen to the wind in the trees out here long enough and you hear them whisper. They believed this to be a God spe...

I was inspired by a recent article in the New York Times about a Philadelphia church that unknowingly sold two huge Tiffany stained glass rose windows for a pittance. It seemed like an apt parable about the state of the church in America today. If you are interested, you can read my blog post here:
https://revmdavis.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-forgotten-treasure-of-church.html
Marshall Davis

The Forgotten Treasure of the Church The dilapidated Gothic Revival building, built in 1901 by St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, was in bad shape. The new owner, the Emmanuel Christian Center, was renovating the rundown property. They wanted to convert the space into a modern worship center and youth center. The old church windows did ...