Author Archives: jimwdollar

“The peace of wild things” (Wendell Berry) is found in letting things be what they are, and not incessantly willing things to be different than they are. Life protests its surrender to life, but it recognizes inevitability when it sees it and acquiesces to the circumstances without holding grudges, planning its revenge, or endlessly bemoaningContinue reading “July 22-B, 2022”

Every living thing has some guiding sense of what it is about, about what is its to do. Every living thing lives knowing and doing its business and avoiding/ignoring what is not its business. Every. Living. Thing. And that has been true of human beings for most of our existence. With agriculture and domestication ofContinue reading “July 22-A, 2022”

I say this from time to time because it cannot be heard often enough: It is all useless, hopeless, pointless, futile and absurd, and coming to a very bad end– every living thing dies. And. How we live in the meantime makes all the difference. We have to live as those who do not careContinue reading “July 21-D, 2022”

I am reading Frederich Nietzsche (“The Birth of Tragedy”) and Arthur Schopenhauer (“The World as Will and Representation”) simultaneously, with each alternating as comic relief to the other. Every time I open either, I experience an immediate flashback to the Kevin Kline character Otto in “A Fish Called Wanda,” acknowledge the similarities, and dig in.Continue reading “July 21-C, 2022”

When the door opens, walk through. The tricky part is knowing the right door when it opens. It is not necessarily the door we want to open. “That which you seek lies far back in the darkest corner of the cave you most don’t want to enter” (Joseph Campbell). Walking through a door open toContinue reading “July 21-B, 2022”

This Singing Bowl was blessed by three Buddhist monks over the course of my tenure at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro, NC. I used it to ring us into and out of the silence that began the service of A Gathering of Sojourners each Sunday morning. The right kind of silence opensContinue reading “July 21-A, 2022”

How do we spend our time? How do we decide what to do? I recommend the practice of living out of the emptiness, stillness and silence. And finding our guidance and direction from the things that come to us, arising, appearing, emerging in the silence to evoke us into acting in the field of action.Continue reading “July 20-C, 2022”

People who look for what makes life worthwhile, worth their effort, worth their time, are not concerned about their original nature and innate virtues. “What’s in it for me?” is their only interest. “When is it going to be my turn?” “How can I get what I want?” “All I want is MY WAY NOW!”Continue reading “July 20-B, 2022”

We have vulnerabilities that are actual, and vulnerabilities that are imaginary. At 2:00 AM, imaginary is actual. At 2:00 AM, we can worry about the damnedest things. For some people, 2:00 AM lasts all day long, every day. They are awash in agony over earthquakes that never happen, droughts and floods, and a critical shortageContinue reading “July 19-B, 2022”