Unfinished Business

Now that I've had a little more space to breathe, I can get back to some unfinished business. There came a moment leading up to the Buddhist Festival that I just had to drop extras. I meant to get started today, but my time was taken up with little errands that added up. So it goes.

I got caught up with some rss feeds this week, including Scientific American. I found this review on the book On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even When You Are Not. This is one piece of why I blog. Memory is extremely faulty, yet we humans will insist years later that we remember something as if it were yesterday. If I write about it, I can look back later for the closer encounter. So can my friends. Another feed I am staying on top of is Hemant's Friendly Atheist blog. (I read his book and wrote about it.) His blog keeps me thinking about the impulse toward religion. I think some of people's certainties about religion come from this amended memory thing we do. We change the story so it's more like...a story.

So, some things I took notes on, but have yet to transfer here:

• Seeds of Compassion: The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. I gathered some blogs about it for the NW Dharma News. Also look there for a short reflection from me among the reflections. I have more. I'm actually thinking about discontinuing my writing for the NW Dharma News. I have a hard time saying no, I can't do this anymore. Something has to give though.
  
• Town Hall, and the last Unnatural Causes. I blogged on every episode so it feels unfinished, as I didn't do the last one. Nor did I write about the town hall that I was invited to because of my writing about the series.
• No Time to Lose: I think I have 2 more chapters to write about, maybe 3. Then a synopsis to complete the class. I might be able to finish the Buddhist Studies program at the Zen Center (formerly named Seminary) this fall, if I can just get past papers done this summer.
• Books and movies. I've been keeping track of books and movies just not writing about my impressions. I finally started doing ratings at IMDB for this very reason.
• This spring we had a staff day, I wanted to blog about that. (I also have a few photos I need to get to people.)
  
• I also have several Dharma School lessons to write about, but I'm doing that at my Dharma School blog.

Groan, this could take me awhile. I have ideas about which I will do first, but if my few loyal readers have a preference about which ones I do first, just say Hey, do that thing. I may not write about all the books and movies, so if you have particulars you'd like to read about, say that too.

PS: nobody wants a free canvas bag...a Portland collector's item?