Welcome to Unanswered Question.
“Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply.”
– from “The Sphynx,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unanswered Question is a newsletter exploring the spiritual life.
My intention here is to offer a reflection every Monday alternating between free and paid subscriber postings.
I intend to add additional free postings one or two times a month.
I’ll likely miss a deadline or two along the way, as well…
If you cannot afford a subscription and want a specific article that’s behind the paywall, send me a note. I will happily provide you with a copy.
As to what is going on here…
I’ve walked the spiritual path for more than fifty years. In those years from my fundamentalist Christian beginnings, I’ve danced with Sufis, studied with Christian mystics, lived in Buddhist monasteries, and somewhere along the line I was ordained a Zen priest. Later I also ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister and served as a parish minister for twenty-five years. I’ve taught in Zen centers, lectured at universities and seminaries, and preached from the high pulpits in old New England churches. I have the distinctive honor of being minister emeritus of the First Unitarian Church in Providence.
My path has taken me to a life "between" several traditions, bringing me into a nondual spirituality. Trying to unpack what that actually means in my life, and with a tip of the hat to Erasmus, I claim a physiology of faith, a Buddhist brain, a Christian heart, and a rationalist stomach. I claim no virtue in this, it is simply a confession.
My spirituality is rooted in the nondual expressions of Zen Buddhism. But I am also and sometimes profoundly informed by other nondual traditions. This is especially true of Christian mysticism. Practically this has manifested in a professional life as a minister informed as much by Western Christian traditions as Eastern. While at the same time engaged for decades as a Zen student. And now for many more years as a spiritual director deeply focused on the gifts of Zen meditation, retreat, and especially the koan introspection discipline passed on through the Harada-Yasutani lineage.
I’m married to Jan Seymour-Ford. Jan is a retired librarian, for many years the research librarian at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. She has spent a large part of her life active in social justice issues. Jan is also a senior dharma teacher with Empty Moon Zen.
Today we support Jan's mom's aging in her home, living with her in Tujunga, a neighborhood on the slopes of the Big Tujunga Wash at the north eastern edge of Los Angeles, California. I am also part of the teaching circle for Empty Moon Zen. Jan & I attend the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, where I am an affiliated minister.
In 2006 I was offered a sabbatical, the only of my working life. I left the Unitarian parish I served in suburban Boston, and was minister-in-residence and visiting lecturer at Meadville Lombard, the UU seminary in Chicago. As I was preparing to leave for my small adventure in academia a mentor wisely suggested I find a way to keep in touch with the people paying the bills. She added, blogs are becoming a thing. With that I launched Monkey Mind, using the name of my church newsletter.
Seventeen years later and change, I feel that blog, while it stills has a place, is scattershot and simply reflects my interests in a moment. Mostly spirituality. But really pretty much anything that catches my attention, including culture and (largely progressive) politics. Hence, monkey mind.
Today, ten years into my retirement from parish ministry, I find my interests drawing ever tighter. My years of Zen practice, my teaching, my friendships and study of comparative mysticism, especially Christian, and my interest in how this all squares with the phenomenal world we meet day in and day out, calls me to want to explore these matters in a more focused manner.
And with that, this newsletter, Unanswered Question.
Here I’m writing specifically for the spiritual engaged. I want to share the fruits of my spiritual journey as a Zen practitioner and a minister in the Western traditions. I hope as a spiritual friend, and fellow traveler. Perhaps with a few more years on the way than most.
If this sounds interesting, please consider joining me on this journey.
Why subscribe?
First, to support this project.
But there are personal benefits, as well.
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter. Do this and you’ll never miss updates as they come. For a cost comparable to a latte at your favorite coffeeshop you will receive regular reflections and commentaries on the highs and lows of an engaged spiritual life.
Our times are threatening the collapse of cultures and we’re witnessing religions in turmoil. Some are finding the ancient wisdoms of the heart calling, leading you on to the intimate way, the ancient path.
Unanswered Question may be a touchstone on that path.
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