We began James’ discussion of Mysticism yesterday. A student emailed me this comment:

Do you think Willie Mays is an official Gator now that he an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from SFSU? I thought you would have been all over that when you were talking Dwight Clark’s, “the catch,” in class today. Willie Mays has his own version of “the catch,” check it out.

Yes, I knew Mays was an official Gator. But what I hadn’t thought about was the prospect of ineffability from an athlete’s perspective. Read the rest of this entry

This post from Andrew Sullivan’s blog reminded me of a discussion in class today about the similarities between religions. Sullivan quotes from a blog by Thoreau (no not that one):

In a report on Indonesia, the Economist makes the interesting point that urban Muslims in Indonesia are actually more likely to be drawn to more austere, fundamentalist versions of Islam than their rural counterparts. The rural Muslims prefer religious practices that blend Islam with elements of Hinduism and indigenous faiths that were practiced there prior to Islam.  No generalizable point here, just an interesting observation on how complex matters of religion and culture can be.

Penn (of Penn & Teller) on the difference between an agnostic and an atheist.

I mentioned that there was a “six degrees” story about myself and Fr. Winance (look under Convent Blog).

Many, many decades ago, a young man attended Pomona College where he met Fr. Winance. Fr. Winance was teaching a class at the Claremont Graduate School which is just up the street from Pomona College. (The Graduate School is now called Claremont Graduate University). This student’s name was Robert Hale.

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