The Gospel as Tao: Acceptance as Pu, and Apostles of Now

Under the Influence has long taught that “logos” is the equivalent of the chinese character “mu.” In other words, Logos is paradox, purposefully maintained so as to break our addiction to logic and awaken intuition.

This asks an important question, though. If Logos is paradox—the unresolved tension between speaking and silence—then what is the gospel, and how do we proclaim it?

The post “New Thoughts on Evangelization” has reminded us of the Church’s ground rules: The gospel is lived first, then preached verbally only when someone asks. Some religious communities go even further than that: the little brothers and little sisters of St. Charles de Foucault purposefully take menial jobs, and may not even tell you about Jesus when you ask.

The point, as the post said, is that "life itself preaches.” This has been a belief in the background of Under the Influence for as long as it’s existed. So I’m sort of surprised that the following statements have taken this long to formulate. The day they occurred to me, I wrote them in BIG LETTERS across my mind: THE GOSPEL IS PU. WHEN IT’S PROCLAIMED, IT’S THE TAO. ...

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Family, Faith and Foundations: Part 2 of 2

IV.

Gramps was buried in Westford, and Granny died in Atlanta. So transporting her ashes would be challenging. Human remains were hell to send through the mail.

Since I’d driven down from North Carolina, I was the only person in Atlanta who absolutely had to drive to the funeral. Everyone else had the option to fly. So it was ultimately decided that I would road trip the ashes back home to Vermont. The family even paid for new tires for my car, taking the money out of Granny’s estate.

My family called it the “Highway to Heaven” tour. They were playing on the 1980 TV show by the same name, in which Micheal Landon played an angel. Privately there were jokes about me befriending overweight truckers along the way, and snapping photos with both them and my Grandmother’s urn of cremains. Publicly, as always, we Warners were less cheeky.

I left the next day. I don’t remember a single moment of the trip, until I crossed the Vermont state border. Then I remember almost every second of it. I remember the feel of the wind as I drove. I remember the look of the trees, which seemed poised, despite the warmth, to begin changing color and dropping their leaves. ...

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Family, Faith and Foundations: Part 1 of 2

This is an excerpt from a book I wrote mining my reasons for entering and leaving the monastery.  The following is the first part of one of its Chapters.  The second part will follow next week....

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