Thomas Merton
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Doubt Beyond Certainty
My hunch that our religious instinct is best realized when we are exploring, and when we occupy places that permit exploration. Continue reading
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The Gift of Knowledge: Absorbed by Truth
Why do I say ex-philosopher? Because, since Descartes and perhaps before, modern Western thought has turned knowledge into a problem to be solved. Rationalism, empiricism, idealism, phenomenology, utilitarianism: all these systems tend to make knowledge into a mechanism of control, a means of prediction, a form of power. Descartes and Locke both used the word… Continue reading
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A Review of David Beck’s Fragments: Reflections on Life and Faith throughout the Years
If you are going through a midlife change, or reflect on life at all, you have to read this book. Book reviews are supposed to be brief, but exercising restraint in reviewing David Beck’s “Fragments: Reflections on Life and Faith through the Years” ($15 softcover, $9.99 Kindle US, on Amazon.com), would be inauthentic. Moreover, it Continue reading
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Authenticity in an Age of Totality
In an age when the fifth type of totalitarianism, Mass Society, has systemically devalued and degraded the human person, I hope it is proper to demand a hearing of any and all authentic reactions in favor of a person’s inalienable solitude and for her effective freedom. The murderous cacophony of materialism cannot be allowed to Continue reading
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A Polluted Existence
Technology transforms an individual human into a mass person, whose only function is to enter anonymously into production and consumption. On the one side, she is the biological link between machines; on the other side, she is the digestive system through which the products of the technological world pass. Continue reading
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Prayer and Meditation
The spiritual without being religious people, these new practitioners of meditation, claim a connection to the spiritual life by doing nothing, least of all, praying. But, meditation without prayer is not actually meditative. Continue reading
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Authenticity, Scapegoating, and Peace
To practically everybody, peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their mimetic desires for comfort and pleasure. Continue reading
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The Burning Breath
But deep within the breath is burning; my breathing is burning. And that which I watch in meditation, part voluntary and part involuntary, burns in the smoky air. And alone in universal greed and desire, I breathe. Continue reading
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Solitude, Separation, and Holiness
“To live in communion, in genuine dialogue with others is essential if one is to remain human. But to live amidst others, sharing nothing with them but the common noise and the general distraction, isolates a person in the worst way.” Continue reading
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Dimensions
They said what the four of us knew in our bones: together, every obstacle could be resolved. Continue reading
About me: I am a career educator and traveler at heart. My written work includes academic writing in philosophy and linguistics, English acquisition, and most intently in the areas of spiritual engagement with reality and what that means for our public lives.
My education is a mixture of formal study in philosophy, political theory, Biblical studies, and history, along with professional teaching certification in TESOL and in cognitive testing, and international teaching.
My travel experiences include a range of countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. I have lived in Canada, the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Thailand. From those places I have traveled to many others besides.
I am a child of the 70’s and a “family man.” That means I have two wonderful kids who have been round the world with me.
Lastly, I am married to a wonderful woman since 2004. She is my partner, my friend, and my muse.
Thanks again for stopping by,
Raymond Klassen - Ideals and Identities 