User:Davidc

Hello, I'm David and I guess you are wondering what I am doing in this space. (In case you are questioning my spiritual credentials, here's a picture of me with the dalai llama). I am here for two reasons, first as a contributor (sorry, no money, just an article) and secondly as a friend (for 30 years now) of Rob, the admin of this domain. Rob and I rose from similar humble beginnings to become what we are today--humble middle-aged old men. Personally I started out with nothing and still have most of it left (stolen joke). I am originally from Birmingham, AL and currently live in the outback of rural Mississippi and work at a large university. I am married, no kids, and have a small zoo of llamas, cats, and a possum (that's Southern for "opossum").

My religious background is conservative Protestant Christianity, but my journey has led me through Anglicanism with a strong inclination toward more esoteric traditions such as Zen Catholicism (William Johnston, Thomas Merton) and Celtic Christianity, which may be more myth than history, but nonetheless I am drawn to its reputed idea that nature is permeated by the divine and thus enchanted, as distinct from the more conventional theology that sees God floating above a fallen nature in aloof detachment.

For several years my interest has gravitated toward the integral spirituality and philosophy of Ken Wilber. I first began to lean toward integral thinking in high school and my academic track finally culminated with an MA in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Western Kentucky University, a program that was consciously integral (though that term was not used). Throughout college and beyond I had accumulated quite a personal library in my quest to connect all of the dots of existence, and then one day I discovered Ken Wilber. His integral system was so plausible and elegant that I found myself in the strange situation of suspecting that most of my library had been rendered obsolete by a small handful of Wilber books. In fact, I sold and donated most of them shortly thereafter, resulting in no regrets and a feeling of spiritual lightness.

Considering that I am a "recovering Protestant" as well as a "failed amateur Buddhist" I have long been hard-pressed to categorize myself in any positive way, not that I feel a particular need to be in a category. However, it has become apparent fairly recently that my spiritual path is Franciscan, and has been moving in that direction for several years unbeknownst to myself. The simple zen-like act of daily feeding and caring for a variety of dependent animals, each one a singular miracle, has become no less than a holy communion of boundary dissolution requiring neither intentionality nor effort, altogether lacking the strainings and distractions of meditation, and quite likely the closest I will ever come to finding mystical union in the routine of daily existence.

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