Category Archives: The Church of What’s Happening Now

We need more time! If we only had more time! Everything would become clear with time! That is the fundamental illusion. Jesus perpetuated the folly with his, “Wisdom is known by her children” line, and even if we extend the theory to the level of the grandchildren, or the great-grandchildren, wisdom still lies unrecognized byContinue reading “April 18 – A, 2023”

Photography is being where the photos live and waiting for them to appear. I stalk photographs like a leopard stalks a warthog. I troll for photographs the way shrimpers troll for shrimp. I get up early to be in place before sunrise, and stay out late to catch afterglow following sunset. I wait, and wait,Continue reading “April 17-A, 2023”

Wu Wei is action without effort, doing without thinking, without striving, without trying. “Do or do not!” said Yoda, “There is no TRY!” That is Wu Wei, doing or doing not as required by the moment, by the here/now. That is how we live in every moment. Being wholly “of the moment” as one “thusContinue reading “April 16-A, 2023”

On a large enough scale, nothing we do matters, and on a small enough scale, everything we do matters. I recommend living small. Live on the level where our next breath counts for something! Live on the level where what we think determines, or, at least, strongly influences, what we do, and where what weContinue reading “April 14-B, 2023”

We live our way into the presence of That Which Has Always Been Called God. And no one can tell us exactly how to do that. Those who know can tell us generally how to do it. Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.” That is as much as can be said. Beyond that, “The TaoContinue reading “April 13-B, 2023”

If you want to keep up with my other probing of reality, I’m also to be found at: 04/13/2023 – A and: https://www.clickasnap.com/jim-dollar –0– The path to transcendence is called the Tao. It is that simple and that complex. Transcendence is the heart of the matter. “The Tao that can be said is not theContinue reading “April 13-A, 2023”

We are being swept up in global fear produced by the extreme right who are always afraid of everything. For sixty years or so, the members of the extreme right have been filling the airways and media outlets with their fear of The Complete Loss Of Everything, and how Our Enemies Are Everywhere And AreContinue reading “April 11-A, 2023”

All bad religion is about theology and all theology comes down to opinion about hearsay. All good religion is grounded on experience, and comes down to what Harlan Howard said about country music: “Three cords and the truth.” We don’t have to believe anything in good religion. We don’t have to take anything on faith.Continue reading “April 10-A, 2023”

What needs to happen right here, right now? That is the question we take with us into every situation as it arises– into each moment in every situation as it arises. Not, “What do I want to happen?” What needs to happen? Wanting/Wants/Desire/Desiring have us where we are. How many of us want to beContinue reading “April 07-A, 2023”

In my dream, I am sitting at a table in a restaurant with a black man, about to order breakfast, and looking forward to our conversation about a movie we are thinking about making, when a white man walks up to our table, making a scene because we are ruining his breakfast by eating togetherContinue reading “April 05-C, 2023”

There is the plot, and the script, and the narrative, and the context which we are continually trying to impose our plot, script and narrative upon, thinking we are the director when we are only the actor in a plot without a writer, unfolding, ourselves, along with it as the circumstances keep evolving according toContinue reading “April 05-B, 2023”

When “the world is too much with us late and soon” (Wordsworth), where do we go to recover, regroup, revitalize, revamp, renew? Emptiness, stillness and silence are always right there. A return to silence is always in order. Giving ourselves a time-out can be the best choice available to us in a lot of situations.Continue reading “April 05-A, 2023”