I came across this quote today, and it seems worth posting here. It's a quote by John Lennon:

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” 

As I imagine you know, right now, thousands of people all over the country (and the world, too) are taking to the streets to "Occupy" places like Wall Street and San Francisco. I myself will be showing up on Monday for OccupyOakland for a while. This blog post has been inspired and informed by this movement - this historic movement. But it's not just about this movement.

The Casitian Universe Series was originally meant to be one trilogy. It was designed to be three books which chronicled the twenty-five years or so after the Casitians contacted Earth, and life for humans on Earth and in the galaxy were forever different. I was going to finish the trilogy, and then go off to write one of several other book ideas set in different universes.I have three different first contact stories that I would like to at some point expand and work on.

I've been in the midst of a ton of research on the American Civil War, because my fourth novel is set there. Although I didn't spend most of my time looking deeply into the causes of the Civil War, I have by now read my fair share about it. I read one of the seminal books on the Civil War, called "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson. I'd recommend it to anyone. It has a really nice set of chapters that lays the foundations for the war.

Van Jones, who I have always admired, has an organization that I think is unfortunately named "Rebuild the Dream." And the language of this movement as it were, is around "saving," "rebuilding," and "protecting" the American Dream. 

I wrote this sermon in 2006 for the Progressive Faith Bloggers Conference. I was thinking of it recently, and it just seemed so appropos for where I am, and where things are, so I thought I'd repost it.

Finding and claiming our prophetic voice

I think often free enterprise is confused or conflated with capitalism. I thought it was worth a follow-up post to my "Inherent Violence of Wealth" post to talk a bit about it, since I don't think I was especially clear in my discussion that I was talking only about wealth gained from capitalism.

People often ask what writers do I read, and what are my influences. I figured that was a great subject for a blog post. First, the big picture.

This is a belated, and long-percolated response to a blog post by my friend Ryan Dowell Baum. I am going to focus my discussion on one particular point that Ryan makes in his post:

I've spent a lot of time in my life trying to fit myself into varied spiritual boxes. I was a Presbyterian, then I was a Nazarne, then I was a humanist, then I was a Pagan, then a Buddhist, then a UU, and lastly a progressive Christian. Lately, I have come to realize that there are aspects of all of these identities in my spiritual and religious life at the moment,  but none of them can singularly hold me.