Hello

Going deeper –
And still deeper –
The green mountains.

waitte mo
waitte mo
aoi yama

A Zen haiku of Santoka Taneda (1882-1940)

Unofficially…..

I’m an independent writer and teacher, investigative theologian, spiritual activist, recovering journalist, fallen away Unitarian who became tired of empty ritual and rigid dogma and was led by grace into full communion with the worldwide Roman Catholic community, father of two kind and generous adults, now friends, grandfather to Amani Jean Shara and Kumaya Akhil Shara (oh happy days!), East Coast transplant, veteran of Oakland, California, now in Bloomington, Indiana, truth-hungry, love-thirsty, a long way to go, always desperate for more reality…

Officially….

Here is my latest Curriculum Vitae to download/print.

Snapshot

Writer.
Editor.
Teacher.
San Francisco Bay Area.
Central Indiana.

More details

Studies in Catholic theology, Jewish studies and Modern Hebrew, 2007- present.

Adjunct lecturer, English Composition and English Literature, New Testament Studies, Oikos University Oakland, CA 2012-23.

Adjunct lecturer, Philosophy of the Human Peson and Comparative Religion, Holy Names University, 2012-14.

Essays for Tikkun Magazine and articles for the Tikkun Daily Blog, 2007- present.

Want Peace? Work for Justice

Learned some Spanish in Guatemala.
Taught some English in San Salvador.

International election observer during the presidential election of FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes in El Salvador in 2009.

Iraq human rights delegation with Voices in the Wilderness to break the inhumane sanctions against the Iraqi people during Saddam Hussein’s regime. (Vitamin C and school pencils were outlawed by U.S. and U.N. You wonder why they are fighting back?)

Bad boy, disobedient but civil.
Imprisoned in Federal Correction Institution (FCI – Lompoc) prison camp for criminal trespassing at Fort Benning, Georgia, under the School of Americas Watch. (SOAW takes the radical position that mass murder and death squads are not an effective response to poverty and oppression in Central America.

Time served in other institutions

State University of New York at Albany. (MA degree in economics with honors on destabilizing inflation of 1970s.)

Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. (Master of Theological Studies: Recovering the Via Purgativa, Catholic Roots of 12-Steps.)

Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. (MA in Jewish Studies with focus on post-Holocaust Christian theology of Judaism.)

University of Chicago, BA in Modern European History, French Revolution. Studied the democratic Catholic royalism of François-René de Chateaubriand.

Languages

Hablo y leo en español, el idioma de los dioses,

et aussi, j’aime bien lire les classiques français pour comprendre et discuter de leur beauté et de leur pouvoir.

Εν άρχή ήν ό λόγος, καί ό λόγος ήν έν ελληνικά!

Still climbing the mountain of Hebrew in its biblical, rabbinic and modern forms.

!שמע כולם, ללמוד תורה

Where I find healing and reality

Home Parish: St. Paul’s Catholic Center and St. Charles Borromeo Church, Bloomington, Indiana.

Bay Area Parish: St. Margaret Mary Roman Catholic Church, and Our Lady of Lourdes, Oakland, California.

Interfaith member: Beyt Tikkun, Jewish Renewal synagogue of Rabbi Michael Lerner, Berkeley.

Hey, reach out and stay in touch!

I’d love to hear from you more than listen to myself. Email me and put “Hey, Read Yr Website!” in the header so I’ll know it’s not spam!