The Useful Thinker

    Not long after my spiritual awakening, I contacted a Taoist and Qi Gong practitioner who was kind enough to talk to me for a while as I tried to figure myself out. At one point, we discussed how I had gone to believing the Protestant Christian view of the world was the only correct viewpoint to now being able to see nearly every point of view. He said something that has stuck with me since then. "When you look at different religions, don't look for the differences. Look for the sameness." Since that point, I have come to realize that, as Stuart Wilde once said, "the spirit world has a nice way of making everybody right." 1     There are many religions and philosophies the world over, and many of them are quite dogmatic. In the past, Christians persecuted other groups and each other. I have a friend on the other side of the world whose whole family converted from Buddhism to Protestant Christianity, and they were persecuted by the Buddhists. I once met a man ...

     Last week, my wife and I drove all the way across the great state of Iowa for a very special reason. Before leaving, we stopped at the library where I checked out an audiobook entitled The Tao of Willie , written by Willie Nelson (If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it.) We listened to the entire book along the way. Coming into a park situated by the Missouri River, we met up as planned with a couple of strangers who had a dog, dog food, dog treats, a leash, and a flat pack kennel in tow. Once she has sufficiently calmed down, the German Shepherd was handed off to me and we coaxed her into the back of our silver RAV4, which had been prepared with a blanked just for her. We talked to the couple for a moment, then waved goodbye as they drove away. We were now the owners of a hyper seven-month-old, gold and black bundle of hair and happiness.      Neither one of us is ready for the full responsibility of dog ownership, and for that reason I t...