Critical Mass

“For Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his.”
-Gerard Hopkins


Fig.1 Eggs are for omelets, silly rabbit

My little cousin was raised Catholic. She went to a Catholic private school until eighth grade, serves at mass, goes to many church functions and camps and jokes about the priests’ varying sermon-giving skills with my grandma around the Easter dinner table.

One Easter Sunday we sat around and discussed the resurrection story, spun it into contemporary language, and in the end, realized that it was actually the craziest Spring Break “Disciples Gone Wild!” vacation story ever.

Just imagine Jesus explaining it to his mother:

“I don’t know what happened. One minute I was at a party, drinking with my buddies, the next, I wake up in a cave wrapped in a shroud. Then I looked at my hands and went, ‘Whoa, where the hell did those come from? And all these scars on my back and my head and this gash in my side… I swear, I had no clue what went on between Passover dinner and the cave, so I called Father and he moved the stone out of the doorway for me and went to find the guys.

“I asked Peter and Paul what happened. They were all like, ‘Dude, we thought you were dead,’ and I was like, ‘You morons!’ Son of God here! I am one with the Father and the Holy Spirit! Get with the program!

Fig.2 TTYL

“They said that after the dinner we went to Gethsemane and got into so much trouble. Judas sold me out and the police came and arrested me and took me to trial and made me drag a cross through town and crucified me! Can you believe that? Wait, you saw all that? Holy shit. I don’t remember a thing.

“I mean, gese, listen: we came into Jerusalem, got A-list treatment at first, did some seriously awesome miracles… we were on a roll. Sure, Thomas forgot to book the restaurant I wanted for Passover, and the new place only let us all sit on once side of the table, but he came through. We were having fun! And then all this crap happened. *sigh* Tell you what. Life down here sucks. I’m out of here in 40 days. No, really, I’m gonna go live with Dad for a while. I think it’ll be the best thing for everyone.”

I apologize to Jesus for that, but I don’t think he sweats the small stuff.



Fig.3 Bad carpentry

As I mentioned above, I have Catholics in my family. My grandmother grew up on a tobacco farm in Puerto Rico and has been Catholic all her life. I’ve been to mass a few times for happy and sad functions, and my cousin, with whom I am very close, is very active in her Catholic youth groups. My brother-in-law grew closer to his Catholicism while abroad in the Army. It’s not foreign to me at all, and frankly, compared to my protestant Christian upbringing, it never seemed all that different from what I saw at the Methodist church.

Stephen Colbert showed me the difference, though. My in-depth Catholic education sprung from him, and trickled into several pools and eddies along the way.

It began with one of Stephen’s favorite guests: Father James Martin, SJ, a.k.a. “The Colbert Report Chaplain.” He first came on the show to discuss the newly discovered letters of Mother Theresa that outlined her lengthy “dark night of the soul” and struggle with her thoughts on the “absence of God” in her life. Stephen, in his uppity and ironically iconoclastic “Stephen” guise, instantly condemned her for her lack of faith and Father Martin defended her, explaining the difference between not believing in God and believing in God’s absence.

The conversation was conducted in a manner that fans have come to expect from Stephen Colbert: hard-lined but respectful. His words and reactions are almost always hard-lined on the surface, but the questions and retorts actually display Stephen’s deep understanding of and respect for religion, especially the nuances of Christianity.

Fig.4 If Edward Norton doesn't play him

in a biopic, I don't know who else will

Father Martin, gamely playing along with Stephen’s otherwise inflammatory inquiries, displayed that winning combination of spirituality with a sense of humor and I couldn’t resist. I went to the library and checked out his book, My Life With The Saints. With this book, he sets out to provide a bit of a primer on why Catholics revere the saints, one of the biggest sticking points in the tension between Catholicism and protestant Christianity. Written in a warm, inviting, and good-natured tone, his stories of how several different saints informed touchstones or turning points at various periods in his life beautifully revealed the great value in this tenant of Catholicism that I had never really considered before, and it inspired me more than I could have imagined.

In the book, he details his childhood, his conversion from a business career in corporate finance to Jesuit seminary, his missionary trips to Uganda and Jamaica, his pilgrimage to Lourdes and spiritual retreats, and all along the way, he is introduced to different saints’ life stories. Each story somehow corresponds with a struggle or miracle in his own life, and in this way, he befriends them, coming to know them and all their flaws and profound faith in God as close companions in his heart and soul. As a Jesuit, Father Martin interprets this experience of the saints as just another way to see God in everything, and to learn from such visions and visitations.

Fig.5 I bring you Peeps

As I read My Life With The Saints, I came to realize how much we shared in our spiritual experience. None of my saints appear on silver medallions or on prayer cards or will ever be canonized by the Pope, but in that they pop up at advantageous times in my life and help guide it toward enlightenment. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are as good as Ignatius of Loyola and Thérèse de Lisieux. Charlie Chaplin is my Patron Saint of Creativity. Michael J. Fox is my Patron Saint of Persistence. Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan is my Patron Saint of Logic. Paula Deen is my Patron Saint of Indulgence. Connie and Katrina are my patron Saints of Nerdiness. Elissa Hunter is my Patron Saint of Exploration… and Manatees.

It’s a distinctly Society of Jesus trait to “love God in all things—and all things in God,” which is a challenge to see God everywhere and learn from it. It’s a lesson not unlike that of Buddhism. If God is Wisdom, Truth, and Love, then Wisdom, Truth, and Love must be sought in all things. I see them in my saints everyday.

Happy Easter!

Islamophile: Part 2

"All you young political pundit lovers out there, set your hearts to throb!"
--Jon Stewart


Fig.1 My favorite Iranian

Soon after the start of my religious awakening, Jon Stewart opened his show with that line. It is the most astute assessment of my cardiac activity whenever the mop-topped bespectacled religious scholar Reza Aslan appears on TV.

In religious scholar/Middle East expert commentator circles, Reza is “something of a Beatle” as Jon said, also joking that when people think religious scholar, “they think younger” than thirty-something Reza. I haven’t seen any other religious scholar hip enough as to appear on all the kids’ favorite news commentary shows and Facebook and MySpace and The Daily Beast and Bloggingheads and Twitter. Beatle comparison earned.

Once I was watching a documentary on the history of the Qur’an and the moment Reza unexpectedly popped up to offer his insight on the socio-political context in which the Medinians battled the Quraysh, I had tachycardia. I have since collected some of his greatest lecture hall hits on my iPod. You know, for those cold, dark, lonely nights studying the Qur’an. Reza can give me theological exegesis any day.

Fig.2 A revelation unto pop culture

Anyway, Reza sat across from Jon that day and I fell for him the moment he displayed a sense of humor about his religion. The book he was promoting, No god but God, is the first I ever read about Islam. No god but God has since been translated into a dozen languages and is frequently hailed as a great introduction to the faith. It came just in time, too.

Through Reza’s stories of fleeing Iran when he was just a boy and his vivid descriptions of what the Prophet Muhammad experienced during the infancy of Islamic history, the most misunderstood religion in my society was revealed to me with actual truth and deep understanding. What little fear I might have had regarding Muslims was forgotten. Finally, for my part, the Prophet had a face not colored by Arabian stereotypes or tainted by propaganda. It was a face not so different from Moses: the reluctant prophet wizened by God’s words, which eventually told him to lead a faithful people out of oppression and idol worship. Reza painted a vivid portrait of Mecca and Medina at the time of the Prophet and illuminated a history and a geography I had previously encountered only by watching Sir Alec Guinness pretend to be an Arab.


Fig.3 Reza doing what he does best: teaching while handsome

What blew my mind the most after reading Reza’s book was that too many people don’t even realize or accept that Islam is an Abrahamic religion, one that traces its ancestry to the Biblical Ishmael—Abraham’s first son born of his wife’s handmaid Hagar. Moses and Jesus are in the Qur’an, and are blessed just as much as Muhammad by Muslims. The story of Adam and Eve, Noah and Joseph are in there as well, along with many more stars and celebrities of both the Old and New Testaments.

After reading that, it occurred to me that Allah is the same God that gave Moses a reverse makeover on Mount Sanai and gave Jesus the powers of a water bug (among other powers, obviously). God has 99 beautiful names in the Islamic tradition, and Allah is only one of them. The Hebrew/Jewish names for God are Yahweh, Jehovah, He, Him, Almighty, Hashem, etc. and people generally don’t think it’s a different God from the one who sent us Jesus. But the Arabic word still tends to confuse people even though Christians utter that particular name of God all the time. “Hallelujah” this and “Hallelujah” that. How do we pronounce that? "Allah-LU-yah." Praise be to God. Pretty obvious if you ask me. They’d fit right in at a masjid.


Fig.4 The beauty of God is often expressed through exquisite calligraphy

My Rezannaisance set up the modus operandi for the rest of my Islamic explorations. Reza guided my internet research with his attitude of reverent humor and respect for religious history that cut through the hurtful propaganda and revealed the heart of Islamic world culture.

Can I get an Alhamdulillah! for Mr. Aslan?

Dashboard Buddha: Dune Edition

The universality factor is not one limited to Buddhism. Followers of every religion see aspects or images of their faith in everyday situations, culture, literature, and sometimes even tortillas and cinnamon buns. These “sightings” often end up telling us more about ourselves than about the religion, i.e. seeing the beauty of a blooming flower as evidence of a supreme being’s love of beauty or that we truly bask in the wonder that God would take time out of his busy daily schedule to manipulate the heating elements in toasters to create vaguely Jesus-shaped burn marks on bread.

But what is most telling about such visions is that we want to believe. We want to believe that the words of our gospels, hymns, pujas, mantras, and prayers apply to our lives in a fundamental and thinly veiled manner. This is natural and to be expected if we are ever going to push ourselves through toward heaven or enlightenment. Unfortunately, this expectation has to potential to limit our spiritual vision. If we only look for what is obvious as a sign that we are on the right track, we miss out on the infinite subtleties of the Universe. An outsider may not understand the spiritual significance of a Native American peyote ritual or a sweat house, simply because Jesus didn’t talk about it. Or someone may not understand the simple antiquated existence of Mennonites because they live in a metropolis and can’t imagine not having a Facebook account.

In my Dashboard Buddha entries, I will chronicle my attempts to lay the template of my beliefs over commonplace things. It could be any number of sci-fi fandoms, a weekend activity, a movie, a book, a TV show, or a single act of a person that struck me as an enlightened thing to do. I’ll make a concerted effort to turn my spiritual gaze toward the ubiquitous and the unintentionally profound. As George Clooney once said in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, I will “see the lilies of the goddamned field.”

I christen this column with a piece about that most famously misunderstood and deeply geeky of sci-fi adventures: Dune.

I must not fear.


Fear is the mind-killer.


Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.


I will face my fear.


I will permit it to pass over me and through me.


And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.


Only I will remain.

--Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, "Dune," Frank Herbert

Fig. 1 You know you've made it when you're immortalized in Lego

I’m probably one of the few people who saw the original 1984 David Lynch film version of Dune and was positively mesmerized instead of utterly dismayed. I only saw it because I had been watching Twin Peaks re-runs and had a crush on Kyle MacLachlan and I did what any self-respecting teenage girl does when she has an actor infatuation: I watched everything I could find no matter the known quality or lack thereof. What resulted was affection more powerful than that between a girl and her Hollywood boyfriend. The world of Dune had been unleashed upon my impressionable, youthful sci-fi nerd brain and I was dutifully impressed.

When my dad told me I should read the book I was wholly gobsmacked. “There’s a book?! I must read this book!”

Soon after I started reading Dune, I had the privilege to be retroactively disappointed in David Lynch’s movie. This is the complete opposite experience for most people who love Dune. I believe my example proves more the undeniable genius of Frank Herbert than any backwardness on my part.

Dune, which is richly saturated in all manner of religious allusions, has become an exceptionally abundant goldmine for me. The flakes of Buddhism are shiny and plain to see.

At the beginning of the novel, Paul Atreides, the son of the Duke of Caladan, must undergo a special test. It’s a test that will help determine if he is the Kwisatz Haderach—a prophesied messiah in the “Duniverse” who is said to have the power to bridge time and space and inherit the memories of all his ancestors. The test, which involves placing your hand into a black box and feeling it burn with incredible unbearable pain, is designed to test one’s ability to see through fear, and therefore determine your human-ness (as opposed to “a machine created in the likeness of the human mind”—the ultimate sin). The box itself is nothing more than a box, but through “nerve induction,” you are made to believe that your hand is burning up inside.

Fig. 2 Walk without rhythm, you won't attract the Worm

During the test, Paul repeats the Litany Against Fear over and over in his mind and passes the test, never jerking his hand out of the box because he realizes that his fear is unfounded. He is the first male in history to pass this test, which makes the Bene Gesserit suspect that he is the Kwisatz Haderach.

The fear Paul experiences is just an altered perception of reality. Buddhism suggests that all of reality is perception. The key concept of the Diamond Sutra—so-called because it cuts through illusion as sharply as a diamond—is that nothing is what it seems.

Fig. 3 The Diamond Sutra is the Buddha's best friend

The Diamond Sutra invokes the example of a rose. What is a “rose?” It’s made up of thorns, petals, a stem, water, chlorophyll, some perfume. But each of these things alone is not a “rose.” That object we call “rose” is actually an amalgam of parts that constitute a “rose.” Just as we are not fully ourselves without our body parts and a soul or an ego and the people who surround us and call us by our name, a “person” is a combination of things. Nothing, except perhaps subatomic particles—and we can’t even be sure of that—is independent of other things.

We meditate upon this and discover a simple, yet weighty philosophical equation: a “rose” is a “rose” because it is not a “rose.” That’s Buddhist math for you.


Fig. 4 Kyle MacLachlan IS the Messiah because he is NOT the messiah... especially if he can't beat up Sting

A through-line theme of Dune is that the mahdi “Messiah” or “God-Emperor” involved is not simply a messiah or a god-emperor. Frank Herbert writes of “a world being the sum of many things.” The prescience and “other memory” of all the messiah’s past ancestors makes the messiah everything and everyone, dependent on everything and everyone. Muad’dib is Muad’dib because he is not Muad’Dib.

Muad’Dib, being the wise and prophetic man he is, would have agreed with Buddha implicitly: “There exists no separation between gods and men, one blends softly casual into the other.”

The preceding essay is in no way exhaustive of Dune’s spiritual ore. I promise it will surface again and again in the future, like a tea leaf stirring around and around, up and down in a hot teapot. Mmm spice tea...

Fig. 4 Dune in-joke du jour

The Church of The X-Files

“A dream is an answer to a question we haven’t learned how to ask.”
--Fox Mulder

Fig. 1 My lifelong mantra

Aliens and monsters and science fiction don’t strike most people as religious subjects, which is unfortunate, since science fiction has provided human culture (especially American culture) with a modernized means of exploring the intangible, the improbable, and especially the spiritual. The essential foundation of all science fiction is a profound sense of the unknown, paired with an insatiable craving to explore it. Whether it’s Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, or Doctor Who… the world of Sci-Fi has copious denominations to follow, and while I dabble in many, The X-Files was my first and foremost.

When I started considering my new path, it had been years since The X-Files had ended. David Duchovny left the show and I denounced seasons eight and nine as extra-canonical and ultimately apostate. Seeing people on the internet hail the Mulderless episodes as “way better than the old ones” was a sign of the "a-pop-calypse" (copyright Stephen Colbert). The few times I tuned in those last two years I was met with disappointment or depression. When they killed off the Lone Gunmen—those lovable conspiracy theorists—I felt the way I did when I accidentally killed Mulder in the X-Files computer game: absolute horror. I held a funeral service for them in my heart. When I heard the last episode ever was going to air, I watched out of pure morbid curiosity, and my heart sank like never before. It was a death in the family.

In the darkness of all this, I missed the comfort I had from being an "X-Phile:" the knowledge that a bajillion other people were happy to be just as enthralled as I was. I wanted back that absolute knowledge of “we are not alone,” and that the Lone Gunmen weren’t truly dead and somehow lived on in spirit. I needed that same coziness again.

The Mega-Cons in Orlando gave me an annual rejuvenation. Thousands of people answering the call to share their love for all things sci-fi, mingling with followers of various fandoms, and getting a bit of trade done while they’re at it—it’s a classic Meccan Hajj-like experience. I’ve attended with my friends and my cousin over the years, and I cannot deny the warm fuzzy sense of brotherhood and sisterhood I feel each time. It is as thick as the stagnant aroma of the unbathed shoving and dodging through narrow aisles as they search and haggle for discontinued Dungeons & Dragons gear. Spiritual connection through the exchange of trading cards, movie props and action figures. After going there, the Jedis’ wish to be recognized as an official religion doesn’t strike you as all that crazy.


Fig. 2 Nerd Hajj

Turns out, because of The X-Files, I had a lot more to go on than I thought.

In retrospect, The X-Files informed my spiritual framework more than anything else. I was always most enamored with the heady intuitive philosophies Mulder would spout every week. Partnered with Scully’s wonderfully rational scientific perspective, the FBI agents schooled me on open-minded, multi-faceted exploration. Mulder’s belief in the paranormal and Scully’s Christian faith informed their investigations, along with Mulder’s search for proof and Scully’s scientific analysis. Superimposed, Mulder and Scully are not opposing forces, but the archetype of Seeker—one who searches for Wisdom and Truth wherever it is to be found.

I had that going for me, but no tried-and-true method of applying it to my life. I desired a salve that preferably lasted beyond the restrictions of studio contracts, Nielsen ratings, and myopic idiots who call themselves “fans.”

Luckily, I still had Comedy Central-style fake news. Through this trying period of my spiritual life, I could still depend on Jon and Stephen for insight.

Fig. 3 The God Machine

On February 22, 2006, the acclaimed American author and spiritual teacher Lama Surya Das visited The Colbert Report. Stephen always conducts interviews while in his overzealous and stentorian right-wing character, and these encounters are infamously awkward, no matter whom he wrestles into the chair across from him. But not that day.

Lama Das so politely shilled his new book—Awakening The Buddha Within—that I made up my mind right then that I had to read it. He also managed to match every one of Stephen’s verbal thrusts, as silly and reactionary as they were. Not once did the Lama drop his good-humored smile. I later learned that this was the smile of the Buddha.

Buying used books off of Amazon was my Olympic sport, so it wasn’t long before I was devouring these new pages. I loved Lama Das’ simple, genteel tone and how he didn’t proselytize anything but being happy. His little tips on meditations and everyday language had me entertained while I learned some basic Buddhist teachings.

Fig. 4 Life's alarm clock

The improbable happened: I was jazzed about a universally acknowledged religious subject, and it was no coincidence that it was Buddhism. The Buddha, before he was The Buddha, embarked on a historic and legendary path that challenged his perceptions, introduced him to the unfamiliar, which ultimately enlightened him. He took the classic path of Seeker.

Mulder and Scully were the first Buddhists in my life.

When I found out that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama believed it possible for there to be extraterrestrials in the universe, I was on board.

Fig. 5 Take me to your Buddha

Following the Buddha’s “come and see for yourself” attitude toward education, I soon wanted to know the holidays, the rituals, the cultural details and the thousands of years of human stories behind all religions. I had stepped in the path of the automatic sliding door at the Sam’s Club of World Theology and I suddenly had unlimited credit and countless aisles to peruse. I took the Buddha’s open-armed welcome into the stream of consciousness as an invitation to research everything and to understand—not just tolerate—all the religions on Earth. Or at least as many as people could post on the internet and put into TV and movies.

This mechanism for seeking put my feet upon a ginormous Möbius strip, a path that twists and exists in a constant state of interdependence. The further you go, the more it folds back on itself, revealing new connections along the way, without ever meeting an edge of separation. This is and always has been my path, but I finally recognized its origin as a legitimate one.

The light in my life had been shining on me always… from a screen.

Multimedia is the Brahma, the Vishnu, and the Shiva of my education. It birthed it, nurtures it, and will ultimately end it whenever my spirit merges into the Universe. The Universe, or "The Vibe" as a friend of mine likes to call it, is synonymous with "God" in my vocabulary now, as something so all-encompassing I could never imagine being outside of it. I want to spread my fingers towards the very perimeter of ignorance, and then reach past it.


Fig. 6 Hubble "saw" 10,000 galaxies in a portion of the sky 1/50th the size of the full moon

In that spirit, I invoke Ganesh's blessings, for he removes all obstacles. And I recall the words of Rumi, the Sufi poet, so I can begin this little forum with an open mind and heart:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing or rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.