
On
a long journey of human life, faith is the best of companions; it is
the best refreshment on the journey; and it is the greatest property ---The Buddha
A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.

Goal-seeking
activity is always the enemy of real peace and contentment. The idea
that what is here and now is less valuable than what’s over there just
past the finish line prevents us from ever being truly content and happy
right where we are. No matter what your ultimate goal is, it’s always
off in the distance. This goes for any goal at all, even the goal of
attaining ultimate inner peace or saving all beings.
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Armed with a diplomatic passport that granted her immediate access, the future queen jumped on a plane in late October when the employee, who is also a friend, and his husband were unable to travel to care for their newborns. "For me, this is about two babies lying alone in a New Delhi hospital," Mette-Marit said in a statement. "I was able to travel and wanted to do what I could." She did not alert Indian authorities and spent several days with the babies at the Manav Medicare Centre, where staff assumed the wife of Norway's Crown Prince Haakon was a nanny. While the princess was away, her name continued to appear in the official palace calendar and her absence from a parliamentary dinner was not explained. A relative of the two fathers eventually took over from Mette-Marit and the fathers received a visa in November, when they brought the babies back to Norway, the palace added.Norway legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, but the above-linked story notes that paying for surrogacy is a highly controversial topic there. (Tipped by JMG reader Carol)
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When
we give, we need to do so with the awareness that our gift will be both
appropriate and helpful. It is not an act of generosity, for example,
to give money to a wealthy person or alcohol to a child. We also give
what we can afford; we don’t jeopardize our own health or well-being. At
the same time, we can give what is precious to us, what is difficult to
give, because of our attachment to it.
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Spiritual
realization is relatively easy compared with the much greater
difficulty of actualizing it, integrating it fully into the fabric of
one’s daily life. Realization is the movement from personality to
being, the direct recognition of one’s ultimate nature, leading toward
liberation from the conditioned self, while actualization refers to how we integrate that realization in all the situations of our life.
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Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, exchanged vows in the regal church in a ceremony conducted by a senior Army chaplain. The ceremony comes a little more than a year after President Obama ended the military policy banning openly gay people from serving. The two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment ceremony that didn't carry any legal force in 1999 but had longed hoped to formally tie the knot. The brides both live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn't allow gay marriage. "We just couldn't wait any longer," Fulton said. Guests at the wedding posted photos on Twitter while it was underway and afterward. Fulton said Cadet Chapel on the campus at West Point was a fitting venue.Fulton (left) is the communications director for the military LGBT advocacy group OutServe and I've met her at several grassroots events. She's also the head of Knights Out, an organization for West Point's LGBT alumni. Congratulations to the happy couple!
Grace
is the key to happiness. When bad things happen, if we have confidence
in grace, then we can remain grounded in that and not be overwhelmed by
the soap opera of life. And grace is a circular blessing. The more grace
enters your life, the more grateful you are. The more grateful you are,
the more easily grace seems to enter.
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At their Conference today, the Justices will consider petitions raising federal constitutional issues related to same-sex marriage. These are the most significant cases these nine Justices have ever considered, and probably that they will ever decide.Read the full essay.
I have never before seen cases that I believed would be discussed two hundred years from now. Bush v. Gore and Obamacare were relative pipsqueaks. The government’s assertion of the power to prohibit a loving couple to marry, or to refuse to recognize such a marriage, is profound. So is the opposite claim that five Justices can read the federal Constitution to strip the people of the power to enact the laws governing such a foundational social institution.
The cases present a profound test of the Justices’ judgment. The plaintiffs’ claims are rooted in the fact that these laws rest on an irrational and invidious hatred, enshrined in law. On the other hand, that describes some moral judgments. The Constitution does not forbid every inequality, and the people must correct some injustices (even some grave ones) themselves, legislatively.
The striking feature of these cases – not present in any others I have ever seen – is that that they would have been decided by the Justices’ predecessors one way and would be decided by the Justices’ successors another way.