New crazy/dancing puppy music video!

Max the Circles Dog

So i spent the May 1st holiday weekend with at a friend's awesome country house in Umbria. It was good times, good company, fantastic food and a bit of city-free peace and quiet.

My friend Lauren brought her dog, Max. 

Little did i know, Max is the star of his own viral youtube video! 

It's pretty cool and funny, check it out now and see it before all your friends already have: 

'Max, Squared ("I am not an ambiturner" - Derek Zoolander)'

Enjoy it, pass it on to your friends - remember, spam is NOT made of puppies!;-)

Vatican Museums crowd on free Sundays: Avoid it.

i've recently moved into an awesome new apartment (more pics and stories to come). The entrance is on Piazza Risorgimento, here in Rome, but my bedroom window looks down on the walls of Vatican City and via Leone IV. This is the view from my window at 9am this morning:

Last Sunday crowd for the Vatican Museums on via Leone IV.

Those are people waiting in line to get into the Vatican Museums. On the last Sunday of every month, the museums are free. The museums are around the corner there on the right, uphill about 100yards ahead. i had forgotten how crowded it could be on these Sundays as i've been avoiding them for years.

Lineup for Vatican Museums, on Piazza Risorgimento.

When i first moved here, before i became a tour guide, i went to a free Sunday at the Vatican with my friend Simona. i love Simona for taking the time and effort to bring me there, but i also learned free Sundays are the wrong time to visit the Vatican - it's like being a cross between sheep and shivering penguins huddled together for the entire visit!

The line to enter the Vatican Museums stretching all the way to Saint Peter's Square, April 29, 2012. These people will be waiting about 3hours before they get to the Museums' entrance.

When i went outside to get my morning espresso i found that the crowds had only just begun as the museums had only just opened, and that they were getting much worse quickly.

View from the roof of my building at about 10am, you can see the crowd has gotten much thicker.

And remember, the entrance to the Vatican Museums is still at least 100meters further after that corner!

That yellow sign the people are looking at is the calendar and hours of the Vatican Museums. The entrance closed at 12.30, this photo was taken at 12.36pm.

All of these people are still waiting in line. If they were going to be able to enter the Vatican Museums (and it seems they are not), there is still about 45minutes worth of line ahead of them, and this is 5minutes after the entrance was scheduled to close.

 Moral of the story? In my opinion, pay the 14euros to enter the Vatican Museums, or 18euros if you pay for an appointment so you don't have to wait in line. If you value your time even almost as much as you value your money, you will this is a much better value for you:-)

New favorite song: Mason Jennings' I Love You and Buddha Too

Mason Jennings photo from mtv.com

Almost two years ago i first found Ziggy Marley's song Love Is My Religion. Immediately i loved the song and thought it was the best expression of my own spirituality and religious beliefs. That inspired me to share that song, and also to share such a spiritually wise or personally relevant song every Sunday. This collection of Sunday Songs are meant to be open reminders to myself to develop my own health and spirituality.

Now i've found a new favorite: Mason Jennings' song, I Love You and Buddha Too.

It is performed here together with Jack Johnson and Matt Costa. Check it out, give it a listen, enjoy it. Then find the lyrics and my commentary here below.

* * *

"I Love You and Buddha Too"

Oh Jesus, I love You
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed

Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love You, God, and come to You?
We are all a part of You

You are un-nameable
You are unknowable
All we have is metaphor
That's what time and space are for

Is the universe Your thought?
You are and You are not
You are many, You are one
Ever ending, just begun

Alright, alright, alright
I love You and Buddha too

Oh Jesus, I love You
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed

Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love You, God and come to You?
We are all a part of You

Alright, alright, alright
I love You and Buddha too

Oh Jesus, I love You
(I love You, Jesus)
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed

Why do some people say
(I love You, Jesus)
That there is just one way
To love You God and come to You?
We are all a part of You

You are un-nameable
(I love You, Jesus)
You are unknowable
All we have is metaphor
That's what time and space are for

Is the universe Your thought?
(I love You, Jesus)
You are and You are not
You are many, You are one
Ever ending, just begun

Alright, alright, alright
(I love You, Jesus)
I love You and Buddha too
Alright, alright, alright
(I love You, Jesus)
I love You and Buddha too

Alright
* * *

(Thank you to AZLyrics.com for publishing the lyrics online:-)

i love the wisdom and openness of the lyrics. i don't know anything at all about Mason Jennings' background or life. But he respects everyone here. Instead of going with the New Athiest style of slamming Christians, this songs makes it clear: "I love You, Jesus." 

The next word here is important to me: "And." Not "But." "But," would almost negate or excuse the previous statement, the love of Jesus. But here, wisely, Jennings sings that he loves Jesus AND Buddha. (In fact, there is not a single negative word in the whole song, which i also really like.) 

And there are other important characters given homage as well: Ramakrishna refers to an influential Hindu teacher of the 19th Century, Gurudev is a polite way to address any Hindu teacher but may also refer specifically to Gurudev Singh, an important healer among the Western Sikh movements, Tao Te Ching (variously also referred to Lao tse, Lao tzu, etc., due to the difficulty of translating Chinese characters into Latin letters) is the founder of Taoism, Mohammed (also various spellings) of course is the prophet of Islam and the idea of calling God unknowable and unnameable reminds me of (correct me if i'm wrong..) Jewish tradition.

i haven't seen such an inclusive spiritual pantheon since South Park Episode 201!!

Image of Shiva, Tao Te Ching, Jospeh Smith, Stan, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and  Sea Man from  "Super Best Friends," the 201st episode of South Park :-) (Since there is no Jewish character in this image, i list the characters from right to left to represent Hebrew language:-)

My personal beliefs suggest that the various religions of the world are simply translations of themselves, cultural adaptations each to help the various peoples of the world all understand the universal truths about God and the universe. i happen to love the sound and feeling of this song, but the message is really of the greatest value to me. Thank you Mason Jennings!:-)

Photos: "i love the shit in Rome" A collection.

i was walking through Trastevere, in Rome, with a friend. We decided to sit down on some church steps and enjoy our beers. It was my first night back in Rome after going on a traveling tour.When i looked up i saw this plaque here above, saying that the church had been built in 1501. And i thought to myself, "That's some crazy shit!"

Then i looked down and found what you see below.

Human shit!! Right there on the cobblestones!

Tempted to be disgusted and annoyed at the city, knowing the inevitability of it constantly being shitty, i instead decided, "i love this shit." And i looked up again at the church and thought, "i love all of this shit."

 THAT is when i realized i was going to make a photo collection blog post titled, "i love the shit in Rome."

The following is the result of my walk home that night. 

(No more disgusting ones to come, i promise;-) 

i hope you enjoy it:-)

Invisible cars.

That was some delicions shit:-)

This is beautiful shit!

Please, Gov, stop subsidizing obesity and disease

It is not just by chance, or i would even say by choice, that Americans are getting fatter and more diseased (referring especially to diabetes and cancer). The United States government is subsidizing it. This was reconfirmed for me by Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto:

"Since 1980, the price of sweeteners and added fat, most of them derived respectively from subsidized corn and subsidized soy beans, dropped 20%, while the price of fresh fruits and vegetables increased 40%."

Now, i know that there is a (mostly Republican) school of thought in America that the government should not be responsible for people's health. But i also do not think the government should be responsible for the profit margins of the corn and soy bean lobby (read: Monsanto, et. al.)!

No Monsanto image from www.OrganicMomandDad.com

Even if one was to believe that the government were not responsible for the health of the people (because in my mind, this is one of their primary responsibilities), shouldn't they at least be interested in not wasting money? Because the side effects of financing junk "food" are costing us all:

"In 1960, Americans spent 17.5% of their income on food and 5.2% of national income on health care. Since then those numbers have flipped. Spending on food has fallen to 9.9% while spending on health care has climbed to 16% of national income." (In Defense of Food) 

The problem with making the least healthy food the cheapest is that then poor people will eat it, and they will get sick and need medical care, which will not come cheap, quickly causing them to end up broke. Once broke they will keep eating the cheap junk "food," stay sick, and end up calling for your ambulances, my dear non-poor blog readers, and filling up your emergency rooms, spending up your tax money as they go.

(Quotation marks on food because this book makes it very clear how high-fructose, synthesized foods are not actually food - you could eat a piece of paper, that doesn't make it food - and how since the 1980s, it no longer has to be labeled as imitation food, as was required in the past.)


So what i request in this blog post is very simple, nothing radical:

Let's simply subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables, not corn and soy. If artificial sweeteners were prohibitively expensive, as they ought to be, being luxuries and all, maybe people might start considering the fresh fruits and vegetables that are so expensive now. Will this cure every unhealthy person from their junk food habits? Probably not. But it will make those of us that are interested in our health (poor or not), economically able to feed ourselves the fresh produce that our bodies and immune system needs.

Come on Congress, come on Obama, and you can even get in on the act, state and local officials!! Let's vote for health! Throw your influence behind foods that won't breed disease - maybe you'll eventually even find a way to turn a profit on that just like you do on the junk food! However you've got to do it, let's please:

Cut subsidies for corn and soy! Then, let's even subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables instead!:-)

Fruits and veggies image from blog.foodfacts.com :-)

Got flu? Be grateful it's not worse, and get better:-)

i've got a cold right now. Maybe the flu. Super stuffy nose, sore throat, sluggish, a little headachy, maybe a little feverish. It sucks.

And i am so tempted to be annoyed and mad at the situation.

But then i remember - i am so glad i'm not injured, broken from an accident or a freak fall. i'm so glad that i'm going to be perfectly well again soon. i don't have a long-term or deadly sickness, just a little flu.

It makes the symptoms seem so much less bad.

i've been trying to train myself to be thankful for my health and wellness when i'm not sick. And i am remembering more and more often, to be thankful that things are A) pretty good and B) no matter what, not worse than they are. Because they can always be worse than they are.

Unless of course you are an armless, legless, toothless, blind leper that lives in New Delhi, has no food, no shelter, no friends and is tortured every night. But in that case, you obviously couldn't read this blog. So, since you are reading this blog please join me in knowing that things can always be worse, and in being thankful that they aren't:-)

Taking things as they are, i know that i am still perfectly capable of having a happy, and even productive, day. And i am doing the things that i can to become even more well than i am - the things that i think will help most: using a neti pot, eating lots whole fruit with vitamin C (thanks for the fruit salad, Mom!:-) and drinking shloads of water. Also i have been reciting a prayer that i have adapted from one in Josephy Murphy's book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. i have found it to be powerful, feel free to adapt or adopt it too:

The universal intelligence that is inside of me created my very body.
It made my blood and my bones,
it made by organs and tissues.
It knows how to make me perfect and whole again,
and it is healing me right now.
i am grateful.

My symptoms are already subsiding and i am confident these practices made them much more short lived than they otherwise would have been. And i am grateful.

A baseball music video, friendly competition

Growing up i ate, drank, and breathed baseball. Sadly, i was a Mets fan. Since then i have left my home town, then left my home country, and lost track of all the sports i grew up with.

Instead i've moved to a place where soccer reigns supreme and fans express themselves by fist fighting, knifing each other at rivalry games and getting maced by police. Check out this article from Business Insider about some of the worst of soccer hooliganism.

Roma soccer hooligans

In America, with baseball, as far as i know, the fans have not yet taken to brutally beating each other up physically due to rooting for the wrong team. But i have found that Major League Baseball has learned to engage with their fans pretty seriously and interactively. i just found this site where they are taking video submissions from fans in a competition to be in the MLB Fan Cave.

Fans make their own video and submit it in competition to host the Fan Cave in Manhattan, NYC. At this point that i found it, they have narrowed 10,000 videos down to just 50. Having just found at least part of all the videos i found i was most impressed by one, for a fan of the Saint Louis Cardinals - he actually made a baseball music video! Check out this video by Kyle Thompson, a name you will want to remember if you are in America, because it looks like he is going to be the next host of the MLB Fan Cave! Check out his video here - and you can vote for it as well!:-)

Nice to see fans compete with videos rather than weapons:-)

Photo credits: 1 Kyle Thompson, 2 Business Insider

Dear FB, don't be a whore.

Newspaper pic of an actual whore, from the NY Daily News.

Dear Facebook,

Don't be a whore.

Ok, you need to sell ads to make money, i get that. But, this Timeline idea??

You claimed it was to "help us tell our story better." But then you added middle-of-the-page advertising that pushes our content down off the first screen!

Right now on the first screen of my Timeline there is one post that i made and one ad and one post by me. If i scroll down one full page i can see the bottom of my post...and another ad from you!

The old ads on the side were fine. this Timeline assault is obnoxious.

And all the more so because you're obviously just selling your space out to anyone, scams included!

"Congratulations! Your IP has been selected in (city here)! Claim prize!"  ??

"Banks Forced to Write Off Billions in Debt! See if you Qualify for this Program" ???


"You have a pending message ::imitation Facebook message box showing 1 message::" ???? 
You're even letting them imitate YOU!?!? And you know what that ad was for? ilivid.com, a site whose banner read "Download and Watch Instantly"

i used to sell advertising for a newspaper. My job was to make the bottom line higher than it was at that time the year before - money talked. But i still worked to never allow scams (or even misleading ads) from reaching my readers!!!


Plus i've been getting ads on my Timeline for things that are both controversial and diametrically opposed to my own social and political beliefs, which means that your inventory of data's crystal ball is broken too!

Don't get me wrong, Facebook, i actually think you're fantastically cool. But my belief in that is not necessarily unwavering. So, please, shape up! Quit selling ads to scams! Quit making the placing of ad content so obnoxious! And please, remember to stay cool - that's why we like you!:-)

Love,

PaxRyan

Video of my biggest comedy show yet!

This past summer i began dabbling in standup comedy.

PaxRyan at the Arciliuto Theater, Rome

i've performed 4times at Rome's Comedy Club, did 10minutes of (R rated) material to open for a fantastic (and R rated) rock band called Inbred Knucklehead, and then in November i set up a gig in Rome for me and my cousin, Anthony Papandrea, who has been doing comedy for a few years now.

We performed for a nearly full house two nights in a row at, il Teatro Arciliuto, the nicest small theater in Rome!

Warning, the tone is different than most of what you'll see on this blog and though i think i could get away with a PG-13 (not quite R) rating, there is definitely adult content. i didn't cuss at all, but there are sex jokes.

This is the only professional video i have of myself performing. It's the opening act performance for L.O.L., the one man show by New York comic, Anthony Papandrea! Anthony says that comedians perform on stage with a maturity equal to their age as measured from when they started doing comedy.
So here i am as a 1year old!

Anthony Papandrea at The Arciliuto Theater, Rome, italy

Check out the highlights of Anthony's show here, it's pretty hilarious.

A huge thank you to Gaby Ford, Molly Zimmelman and Rita Neveckaite for all of the help preparing for, promoting and doing the show, you ladies were fantastic and both Anthony and i love ya for it! And thank you to Barry Walton and BTV Productions for putting the video together!

PaxRyan's international readership

As of January, 2012, PaxRyan's Blog's readership has come from more than 25 countries!

 47% The United States of America (Where i am from.)

24% Italy (Where i live, since 2004.)

7% Russia


5% Britain

3% Romania

3% India

1-2% Australia, Israel, Germany, France, Denmark, Switzerland

Multiple hits but less than 1%: Egypt, Malaysia, Uraguay, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, Thailand,  
                                                    Bangladesh, Sweden, Canada, Slovenia, Ireland, Moldova (among
                                                    others)

(At this point 1% = 12hits.)

To every thing there is a season.

SunsetSunrise

My grandfather passed away last week. We were close and i loved him very much. But i do not feel that i have suffered at all as a result of his death. i do and will surely always miss him in some way. Of course we would all prefer if he (and all of our loved ones) could keep on living and continue showing up to our parties, talking with us on the phone, being there for us physically and emotionally. We would prefer that he hadn't smoked the cigarettes that gave him the emphysema that surely shortened his life, we would prefer that angry words had never been spoken, we would prefer that we got to spend more time with him. And so it is tempting to be sad, for these and so many other things we wish were different.

But i have learned to instead remember to be thankful.

When Grampy was leaving his Army deployment to Korea, the plane he was supposed to return to the States on crashed and all or most of the passengers were killed. i'm sure thankful he wasn't on that plane, he never would have met my grandmother and made my father who made me.

When i was a baby my grandparents were in a highway car accident with a tractor trailer truck that spun their car and left them with the truck coming towards them head on. i'm sure thankful he and my grandmother weren't killed back then, depriving me of all the fun and memories that i do have now.

Grampy won't be there when i am 40, but i am sure thankful that as a 30year old adult i got to have Christmas dinner with my grandfather!

i definitely used angry words at times in my grandfather's presence, but i'm sure glad i told him i loved him. A bunch of times. And he told me. Even the day before he died. And he told my parents he loved them and and my grandmother too, and all of us told him that we loved him too. We are so lucky to have had that opportunity and i am thankful we were all that thoughtful on that and other occasions, several of which we probably don't even remember.

And i am thankful that it happened while i was in Florida, where he lived, so that i could be at the funeral and enjoy the rare opportunity to see all of my father's family and spend time together with them.

For his funeral, my grandmother had to choose a Bible passage to be read and put in the program. "Everybody chooses the the 23rd Psalm," she said, but she wanted to look at other options. (And i'm sure glad she did - that psalm puts the focus of divinity apparently outside of ourselves, and that does not ring true to my own beliefs at all.)

Instead she chose Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, and i think it is a much better choice:

^"1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

 ²A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 ³A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 ⁴A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 ⁵A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 ⁶A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 ⁷A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 ⁸A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

(Pete Seeger later used an adaptation of these words to make a rock and roll song that i love, most famously performed by The Byrds, check out a great youtube video of it here.)

These words, with what i have learned studying spirituality, do ring as powerfully true to me. Maybe not at first glance though - i would like to think that there is not a time to kill, a time for hate, a time for war, etc. Just like i'd like for my Grampy to not have died. But, teachers from Hindu rishis and Buddhist lamas to Mike Dooley and Neale Donald Walsch have all taught me that things are happening exactly as they are supposed to - and the proof is, that is how the are happening.

There is no use, i am learning, in being sad or in wishing things aren't as they are. It is better, healthier, and more powerful instead to accept things as they are and to find something to be thankful for. We do not always understand WHY things are meant to happen as they do, but these teachers tell me, and i am learning to believe, that everything is always happening for good reason.

Thank you, Gram, for finding a Bible passage that helped me internalize and accept this idea further still:-)

Photos by the author.

.

Our world will continue through 2012!

i'm aware of the predictions and fears. i do however know that the world will continue through 2012 into subsequent years. And i feel that i know this for four reasons:

1. It just makes sense.

Most often the the most probable possibility happens. (Obvioulsy, right?) That the world would end soon AND the idea that it could be predicted by anyone both seem extremely improbable to me.

It is most likely that this year, that the Pope has told us to call "2012," will come and go just like all the others before it.

2. i bet the supposed prediction has been confused, misinterpreted and/or blown out of proportion.

This tends to happen with predictions of disaster.

Back in May, there were predictions that a terrible earthquake was going to strike Rome, Italy, where i live. Some people got really worried about it. i know some people that left town on the predicted date, i heard about offices and businesses that closed up for fear of the impending earthquake.

The prediction has supposedly been made by Raffaele Bendandi, an Italian scientist who lived at the turn of the 20th century. He predicted several other earthquakes and natural events that are believed to have happened as predicted.

Wikipedia photo of Raffaele Bendandi

Well, obviously there was no terrible earthquake in Rome at that time. But the learning point for me is that with a little bit of research i found out (before the date had passed) that he had not actually predicted one for that time and place! Who knows how the idea started getting kicked around by the news media, but people got all upset and worried and he hadn't even actually made any sort of prediction like that.

Now i know a lot of people have put a lot of time and energy into reading all about Mayan predictions. i doubt many of them are looking at primary sources of information, i doubt many of them read the Mayan language, and i know that none of them was present to know the culture or context in which any specific predictions might have been made.

And i really doubt that world ending catastrophy is even what was actually predicted.

3. Buddha said so.

 In the past two winters i have gone to McLeod Ganj, in Northern India, to tutor Tibetan refugees in English. We volunteers were given a discussion topic to prep our Tibetan students on, have them write down their answer and then present their answer to the group in English. One day the topic were about the doomsday predictions for 2012.

Me with my Tibetan students making their English presentations.

Now, the type of English speaker that ends up hanging out and volunteering their time in Northern India tends to be at least a bit New Agey, so many of us might have had concern or even fear. But every one of the Tibetans in the room said that they were sure the world would not be ending any time soon because, according them (all of them Buddhists), Buddha said the world would end when all the people were small. ....i don't actually know that that means, but i happen to be spending time in the United States right now, where it is painfull clear that all the people are NOT small.

i have found plenty of Buddha's other teachings to be wise and beneficial for me, so choose to trust this one too.

The entire class, at the Lha office, in McLeod Ganj, India..

4. i simply believe it.

i do believe we are living in a special time and that changes, that have already begun, will happen in the year we call 2012, but a global catastrophy is not one of them. This will be another one of many doomsday scenarios that blows over without anything terrible happening.

i believe that human beings are awakening to new powers within themselves, but also to our universal connectedness. This will have good outcomes and i think these will begin becoming more clear in this much anticipated year, 2012.

So relax, have fun, hacuna matata and spread the word:

2012 is going to be the best year yet, i'm sure of it!

Enjoy your New Year's Eve, your new year, and then 

enjoy all of your experiences next year and into 

2013 as well! :-)

Earthly love

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3 & 4 from the author, 5, 6

Jesus' birthday?

Imagine going to a party in honor of someone's birthday, and bringing a gift for all of the other guests (beautifully gift wrapped, with name tags to show who the gift is from), but not one for the birthday boy!

Yea, i bet Jesus LOVES that! 

That's probably why Christmas gift giving is so heavily discussed in the Bible :-)

Jesus & Santa
Though, i am sarcastic in using this pic - i do not really think that is what Jesus would really want.

As i ran around getting the obligatory Christmas gifts for friends and family this year, i thought it would be really virtuous, impressive, and truly Christian of people to forgo the giving of wrapped, luxury gifts at Christmas and instead gave things anonymously to needy people they didn't know. (Not that i, personally, am that virtuous - or brave!!;-)

i don't, however, mention this to encourage us to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season, that would be dishonest. That would kill the economy (which would make it unAmerican too, i think, right?)

Of course, if we were to honor Jesus on his birthday, we would do that by acting as he would act. Forgiving our friends and family all their faults and shortcomings, giving unto Caeser that which is his, and giving the rest of our possessions away to the poor, associating with and creating friendships with outcasts and diseased people, meditating a lot and knowing that heaven was already at hand.

...or, we could just imitate the fat guy in the funny suit instead! ;-) :-)

Personally, i am hovering some place between the two ideas. Because, i am observing, that's apparently what i need to be going through right now.

However you do it, i hope too have a very happy December 25th!!:-)

(Photo image found here.)

We are God is everything! Wisdom from Conversations With God, the book trilogy by Neale Donald Walsch

"Remember: We Are All One."

i just finished reading this amazing trilogy, Conversations With God, by Neale Donald Walsch. i found it to be full of wisdom and truth. And it was even fun to read.

These books came to me highly recommended from several friends and strangers. i now pass that recommendation on to all of you - i think these books would benefit absolutely anyone who reads them.

i read them over a span of more than two years. Sometimes i would motor right through huge sections, taking many notes (as i almost always do when i read), and making them some of the most dog-eared volumes i've ever owned. Other times, long periods would pass when i didn't pick them either due to not reading or reading other things. Many, many times i found though that when i did pick them to read i would immediately find exactly the bit of insight, wisdom or information that i seemed to need right then. 

In the text of the work, the voices of both God and the author both emphasize that this work is meant to be read in its entirety and the order it is presented, simply to avoid confusion. It did become clear how certain quotations could be taken out of context and mean something very different than was intended. i would say though that having read all three cover to cover, not only did all of the ideas make sense, and not only did them all seem believable, they all even seemed to be unavoidably and indubitably true.

They are written in the format of a conversation between the author, Neale Donald Walsch, and God. i do believe, in fact, that that is what it is. i do believe that these books were inspired by God at least as much as The Bible was. But then, i believe that about many books and other works of art. And it is incredibly comprehensive, covering (but not limited to) practical advice on family, friends, and work, the nature and power of love, responses on big questions about the universe and our place in it, whether there are E.T.s, angels and ghosts, the reason that we sleep, 2012, theological and moral understandings, it even makes clear the fact that time does not exist.

That in mind, i will attempt to share here i think is the most interesting insight of the book - the identity and nature of God.

Jesus and Muhammad together, with Lord Rama and Guru Nanak, in a wonderful temple in Bagsu, India!

i was walking down a street in Bagsu, India, near McLeod Ganj, one evening in late 2008, when i looked through the window of a temple and saw something that intrigued me: 

The glimpse that got my attention.

Through the decorously gated window it appeared to be a a statue of someone being crucified. This was a very Hindu part of India and i had never heard of anyone in Hinduism being crucified (only the Romans did that!) so i was very curious. i went inside and found that there among all of the other expected Hindu images and icons, there was in fact a crucifixion.

The priest of the temple soon came out and welcomed me, but he spoke very little English. i tried to ask him if the person being crucified was Jesus. He said no, it was not "Jesus," but someone with another name that i failed to understand well enough to record. He told me that this was someone from something called the "why wool" (spelled phonetically to what he was saying.) So i thanked him, left a donation, and went home to my hotel. That night as i was falling asleep, i shot up in bed and yelled, "The Bible!"

In his Hindi accent this priest was saying "wiwool" for "Bible." So i went back the next day and searched around the temple for the priest. i eventually found him down a small tunnel that you had to crawl through the mouth of a lion to enter. He was sitting at a shrine of three Hindu saints. i sat patiently while he told me about all three of these saints, in a story full of long names and complicated contexts. Then begged him to go back downstairs with me so i could look around more there. What i found there was shocking to me and amazes me still.

In the Vashnu Mata temple, Bagsu, India

This Hindu temple, in addition to all of its normal Hindu parts, had a section reserved to the celebration of four different religions' major figures. He confirmed for that "wiwool" was actually Bible!! It was Jesus, and he was right there next to Muhammad!!:-) 

Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad

Empowered by Avalokiteshvara, 1,000 Armed Buddha of Compassion

Statue of 1,000 Armed Avalokiteshvara, Buddha of Compassion

i spent this weekend at the First Annual Florida Dharma Celebration of the New Kadampa Buddhist tradition. This included a ceremony called 1,000 Armed Avalokiteshvara Empowerment. i learned that this figure is a representation of the compassion of all buddhas. (Buddha, here as a non-proper noun, refers to all enlightened beings.) He has 1,000 arms to represent the thousands of buddhas that are alive in this age, and, i believe, in every age. And he has 11 heads - 10 to represent his manifestations in the 10 directions (North, East, South, West, NE, SE, NW, SW, up and down) plus the one on the top that represents his own spiritual teacher.

The 3day retreat took place at the Kadampa World Peace Temple, here in Sarasota, FL. i had never heard of the Kadampa tradition until i visited my parents here in Sarasota two years ago. i was getting my hair cut when i noticed the stylist had a tattoo of  "om" on her forearm. i asked her about it and the conversation lead to her telling me about the Kadampa meditation center that, at that time, was held in a small, normal looking house. OM lead me directly to exactly what i needed at that time! (meditation:-)

 They have since built a complete Buddhist temple right in the center of downtown Sarasota!

Kadampa World Peace Temple, Sarasota, FL

The retreat was wonderful. i learned a lot, met some wonderful people, and came away feeling great. i am sure that some of the ideas and lessons i learned there will stay with me, and i think they might be helpful to you as well.

The U.S. is more powerful than it gives itself credit for.

Some countries in the world are war-torn, recently colonialized, or third world. But basically all of the others have a higher life expectancy than the United States.

Check out this list: Denmark, Portugal, Cuba, Costa Rica, Bermuda, Cyprus, Ireland, Finland, Belgium, Germany, Malta, Britain, Luxemborg, Greece, New Zealand, South Korea, Holland, Canada, Sweden, Italy, Iceland, Spain, Australia, Israel, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan and San Marino. 

They all have a higher life expectancy than the United States!! (according the statistics given by The World Bank and shown by google, see a graph here.) Of the G8 countries, the U.S. would have the lowest life expectancy if it weren't for Russia keeping them out of last place. An explenation of how they arrive at their statistics is available here: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?cid=GPD_10.

The United States has an expected life span of 78 years, compared to Japan's 83 years or Italy's 81.

As an American i simply refuse to accept that we are not capable of better. We can come up with all kinds of explenations - i've been told that this isn't valid because this includes the thousands of Americans killed by gun violence and gun accidents in the States. Then let's decrease that! i've been told that this is due the size of our country, or that it's too difficult because we have so many people but this really all just ridiculous. 

As a nation, we are capable of being healthier, safer, and more long lasting. 

All we have to do is want it. We should prioritize this.

i'd like the government to work on this - i see this as one of its main jobs. i even dream of the corporations taking an interest in their being a part of this country and working on this of the goodness of their hearts. But i can't influence these things very much, at least not quickly or tangibly.

So, i'll start with me. 

i promise to be healthier, both less threatening and and more safe, and to strive towards a long and happy life for the good of all - because that's what i think we should do:-)

CDC warning about zombies: What is happening in America??

i spend most of my time in Italy. But every couple of years i bounce back to my native country and this time, like the others, i am experiencing some reverse culture shock. One symbolic cause of this is something i recently learned actually from American friends in Italy - the Center for Disease Control of the United States of America has a blog dealing with how to deal with a "zombie epidemic."

Now, i have looked into it enough to see it is really the CDC, and also to know that they claim it is a joke. Among my thoughts though are:

1. Do you really think that's funny? Do you not know some people take both Fox "News" and CDC warnings about zombies seriously??

2. You, the CDC, claim that if someone is well prepared for a zombie attack then they are de facto well prepared for hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquaks, floods, etc. ......so you're telling me that for Americans, natural disasters are not compelling enough for emergency preparedness?? AND that zombies are more so??

If the Department of Education had a program to "teach kids to be wizards" in order to get them to study science, it would feel about the same to me. It's just a little thing, just a symbol of the things that exasperate me when i reimmerse in Americana. But, can someone please tell me, does this seem weird/ridiculous/striking to nobody else??

See their blog (from which i stole that zombie picture) here: http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/

And here is where they explain the motivation behind it:
http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm