Here is a story from my first years in India along with a few facts about life here in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. On our first trip to India, my former partner Ashish and I planned a weekend trip to meet his sister, Sangita, and her husband in Shimla. Early one morning we began our journey on a treacherous mountain road, racing 225 km across northern India in a small rinky cab with a madcap driver--even by Indian standards. He careened and jammed, reducing the almost 7 hour trip from McLeod Ganj to under 5. It was only my second long trip by car in India. This is not a myth: the roads and the driving are unlike anything in the West. Over 350 people a day die on the roads, which in a population of more than a billion plus seems small, until you figure into the calculation that fewer than 10% of the population use cars. It takes some getting used to. The British Raj selected this idyllic spot for its summer headquarters when the heat of the plains became too much for their...
A Catholic friend who is also gay asked me how I felt about pedophile Jesuits having their despicable histories show up in the news, and the courts. After cleaning up the common confusion between pedophilia and homosexuality—it’s imperative to keep them separate even when they overlap as in the clergy scandal, I began reflecting on my own history, other gay men I knew in religious life, my experience living with my vows as a Jesuit and my decision to leave. I recall two conversations I had with Avery Dulles. Avery was my friend, a mentor and spiritual director. He knew my life; he’d met my parents and my friends; he tolerated my leftwing political views. His questions about my interests, my reading habits, even the issues I had working with certain professors were always insightful and never judgemental. He also knew about my struggle with my sexuality. His advice in each and every case if I asked for it, and sometimes when I didn’t, was clear and even-handed. He never let me down...
Blue Cliff Record, Case 23: Baofu and Changqing Go on a Picnic When Baofu and Changqing went on a picnic in the hills, Baofu pointed to the top of a hill, saying, “That’s the top of Miao Peak.” 1 “That’s true, you are right,” said Changqing. “But a pity,” he added. (Xuedou: What are you doing, going on a picnic with him? I can’t say there will be no one like these two a hundred years from now, but there will be very few.) Later Baofu told Jingqing about this. Jingqing said, “If it were not for Master Changqing, skulls would appear in every field.” 1 Miao Peak is the Peak of Wonder, the center of Paradise, according to the Huayan or Avatamsaka Sutra. It was one of those crazy things you do when you travel with a fairly open agenda. We'd been visiting Angkor Wat for almost a week, and didn’t have to be in Ho Chi Minh City for another two. While in Siem Reap we’d heard about an adventurous boat trip, billed as once in a lifetime: You crossed the southern end of the largest freshwa...
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