Flat World Faith

The world is flat. Using fiber-optic cables, advanced compression technologies, and aeronautical work force software, Boeing has set up a twenty-four hour ‘round-the-world workday (two shifts in Russia and one in America). In Russia 1,000 engineers, formerly with different Russian aircraft companies like Ilyusian, Tupelov and Sukhoi, pass engineering plans back and forth with American…

One More Nativity Piece

Boring. “Have you read a good Buddhist novel lately?” That question was put to a friend of mine years ago by a Princeton University PhD candidate. Her thesis focused on early Japanese literature (including Buddhist stories) and frankly it was pretty boring stuff. Buddhism lacks one element that makes any story compelling. Ironically, that same…

Eyes Wide Shut

Innocently blind. On business trips, he would spend several hours praying and reading the Bible each morning, with another round of prayers at midday. As a ship captain, he enjoyed long spells of solitude on deck, keeping a diary and recording that he knew no “calling that… affords greater advantages to an awakened mind, for…

Two-Legged Stools

The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of crime that Dickens loved to paint. It is conceived and moved (seconded and carried and minuted), in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails, and smooth-shaven chins, who do not need to raise their voices.1 Not…