Yet Another Unitarian Universalist
A postmodern heretic's spiritual journey.
Avalokiteshvara is a Buddhist deity with multiple identities, some of which I outlined in an earlier post. In Vietnam, this deity appears as Quan Am.
This sculpture, carved in Vietnam in the nineteenth century, portrays Quan Am attired in a white robe. So it is that here Avalokiteshvara manifests both as Vietnamese, and as the White Robed Bodhisatva of Compassion — showing how one deity’s manifestations can be shaped both by theological concerns, and by regional or national identity.
In its Dec. 6-12 edition, The Economist has an article has an article in which it proposes its “word of the year.” The article has no byline, and cites no sources — typical for The Economist, and one of the reasons I do not fully trust it — but this particular article is mostly humorous so I guess I don’t need a byline. The anonymous author begins the article by naming words-of-the-year that were runners-up:
“Finance is a good place to look for words of the year because trends move fast, and its denizens like neologisms. TACO is this year’s favorite. Coined by Robert Armstrong, a journalists at the Financial Times, it stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ and points to the many tariff fights Donald Trump has picked and then backed down from….”
For the record, The Economist’s winning word of the year is “slop,” as in “AI slop.”
From an interview in Esquire with Scott Galloway, who is clinical professor of marketing at the Stern School of Business, New York University:
“When I was younger, I considered myself a scientist, and I was disparaging about religion and people who practiced it. What I’ve generally found is that people getting together once a week to be in the agency of something bigger than themselves and wish their neighbors good tidings is a good thing.”
(Thank you, Carol, for finding this.)
The San Francisco Standard recently published an article by Zara Stone titled “How Gifted Is Your 3-year-old? IQ tests for preschoolers become the norm in Silicon Valley: Psychologists have seen a surge in Bay Area parents seeking a leg-up for admissions to elite schools.” Now remember — it’s elite preschools for which they’re seeking a leg up. That’s 3 years olds.
The long title of the article pretty much tells the whole sick story, but some of the quotes are revealing. The author interviews Tsunami Turner, who works as an educational psychologist at a company in San Jose that provides “child-centered therapy” as well as IQ testing services:
“‘Some parents come in with an IQ number in mind. They are really wanting to have their child hit a specific number,’ she said. Their kids are often very accomplished, taking dace, soccer, art, and music — and know they ‘have to get a certain number.’ They show up ‘highly anxious,’ she said. If scores come in lower than expected, Turner gets pushback and requests for retests.
“‘There’s a lot of societal pressure. The family is incredibly busy and wants their kid in a school that challenges their intellect and supports their development,’ she said. It can spiral quickly. ‘The goal is that a child will get into a good primary school, and that will lead them to getting into a good college, which will lead them to getting a good job and doing really well in the world.'”
In my 13 years working as a minister of religious education in Silicon Valley, I saw some of this — not so much among the families in the UU congregation there, because if you’re trying to fast-track your kids in this way, you don’t waste time on things like moral and spiritual education — but I did see it happening. It really is true, some well-to-do Silicon Valley parents start trying to build their child’s resume starting when the child is 2 years old. I feel this phenomenon is bad for children, and tends to result in accomplished but stunted and less-than-fully-human adults.
Sikhs are strongly monotheistic. The first words in the Guru Granth Sahib, their collection of holy writings, say “Ek Onkar,” or “God is one.” Furthermore, God is transcendent and has not been incarnated in some physical form. Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, wrote a statement of belief that can be translated as follows (reference: Pluralism Project):
There is one God whose name is True. God is the Creator. God is without fear. God is without enmity. God is of eternal form. God is unborn, uncreated, beyond incarnation. God is self-existent and self-sufficient. God is attained by the grace of the Enlightener.
Thus within the Sikh worldview, it would be wrong to say that there is more than one deity. The Sikh religion does recognize a series of ten holy persons, the gurus, of whom Guru Nanak was the first. These human beings are not considered deities by Sikhs — even though from the perspective of other worldviews they may seem to take on some of the qualities of lesser deities — but rather they may thought of as humans who had a special connection to God and who are tehrefore worthy of veneration.
Guru Nanak lived in the Punjab region of South Asia, a place where Hindus and Muslims both claimed their religion was true. Guru Nanak said that God transcends such divisions, and famously proclaimed that there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.
The story is told that Guru Nanak once visited Mecca, the most holy city for Muslims. Sayad Muhammad Latif, in a history of the Punjab, tells what happened there:
“He (Guru Nanak) travelled over the whole of India, visited Persia, Kabul and other parts of Asia, and it is said even Mecca. A story is related by both Hindus and Muhamadans [sic] in connection with Nanak’s visit to Mecca. It is said that while at Mecca, Nanak was found sleeping with his feet to the Kaba, before which the Muhamadans prostrate themselves when performing their devotions. The Kazi Rukan-ud-din, who observed this angrily remarked: ‘Infidel, how dare you dishonour God’s house by turning your feet towards it.’ ‘Turn them if you can,’ replied Nanak, ‘in a direction where the house of God is not.'” (quoted in Kazhan Singh, History and Philosophy of the Sikh Religion: Part I: History, Lahore: Newal Kishore Press, 1914, p. 99)
This story gives a sense of the Sikh conception of God — transcendent, omnipresent.
A lovely painting on paper from West Bengal, painted in the mid-eighteenth century and currently in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, depicts Guru Nanak sleeping with his feet towards the Kaba:
In another version of the story, a Muslim cleric kicks Guru Nanak for sleeping with his feet pointed towards the Kaba, then grabs hold of the guru’s legs and tries to turn his feet away, but “lo and behold the miracle the whole of Mecca seemed to be turning.” (Vaaran: Bhai Gurdas, Pauri 32, At Mecca)