{"id":5130,"date":"2009-08-04T17:50:25","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T21:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/?p=5130"},"modified":"2009-08-04T17:50:25","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T21:50:25","slug":"row-row-row-your-boat-gently-down-the-stream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/row-row-row-your-boat-gently-down-the-stream\/","title":{"rendered":"Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Shepherd, Dean of <\/span>St. George\u2019s Cathedral<\/a> Perth, Australia demonstrates<\/a> how\u00a0 taking too much LSD in one’s youth clouds the faculties, dims the intellect, opens what is left of the mind to cosmic detritus and is generally a Bad Thing:<\/p>\n

I once invited the abbot of the Bodhinyana Buddhist monastery in Perth to preach at a Eucharist in St George\u2019s Cathedral. During Communion representatives of the Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Bahai faiths read passages from their sacred writings, and after Communion an Aboriginal reader offered a dream-time reflection.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wriggle as he might \u2013 and there is a fair bit of wriggling in this article \u2013 the ironically named Shepherd stumbles from muddle to confusion saying first that:<\/p>\n

Perhaps appreciating this point, the writer of John\u2019s Gospel emphasises the importance of staying focused on a living, humane [humane?]<\/em> relationship with the person of the risen Christ. And it was in that person that salvation was to be experienced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then, desperate not to offend non-Christians:<\/p>\n

We are all moving towards what we hope is a clearer appreciation of that which we call God. We come from different religious and cultural backgrounds and experiences, and we have been inspired by different revelations. And we all have our own tradition of worship \u2014 our own perception of a passage to God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We all have our own perceptions, nothing is real man, and other religions\u2019 paths are just as efficacious in re-uniting us to God as Jesus. Someone should have told Jesus that before he went to die in agony on the cross.<\/p>\n

And:<\/p>\n

For ultimately all our streams, about which we can become so obsessive and insular, will empty out into nothing other than the one large sea \u2014 the one heart of the one God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trouble is, the one large sea<\/em> is actually one large toilet bowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Shepherd, Dean of St. George\u2019s Cathedral Perth, Australia demonstrates how\u00a0 taking too much LSD in one’s youth clouds the faculties, dims the intellect, opens what is left of the mind to cosmic detritus and is generally a Bad Thing: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2031],"class_list":["post-5130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-angst","tag-anglican-angst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}