Dear friends,
I’ve just started a blog that has the tagline, “Thoughts on economics, ethics, gender, climate, language, Zen, and a few other things…” What in the world could those things have in common??
I find a lot of commonalities, actually. A sense of curiosity and a desire to do something of use motivate both my social science research and my practice as a Zen student. Both social science and Zen are about disciplined investigation. Both should, if done rightly, keep us focused on the world as it is, in all its strife and pain, and in all its glory and wonder. Both should help us see past old, habitual stories. Both should encourage us to stay open to being surprised.
Some common old, habitual stories have to do with economics. Some have to do with gender. Zen questions the story that “I” am radically separate from “you.” A number of my future posts will explore these themes. So some will discuss statistical distributions or the economics of climate change, others language or stereotypes, and still others koans or zazen. Whoa. I may even throw in some bits from tango dancing, or Christian process theology, or the day’s news. But my goal is to make the posts accessible to people without any specialized background in these areas, tracing out what I think are interesting insights and interconnections. Please leave me comments about whether or not you find them interesting, too!
One way of describing the photo I put in, above, is that it shows a budding tree frosted with snow. (We had some very late snowfalls in New England this year!) But most of the photo is of sky. Do you ever stop to think about how deep that sky goes? Tiny twigs and vast sky. Let’s explore both.
Julie A. Nelson 
Interesting. I’ll check back weekly. Especially for the Zen part, I haven’t connected much with the old Hank group in a while and I’m feeling very out of touch.
Do you accept submissions? There’s a short Zen poem I’d like to share, if you’re open to it.
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Excellent start. Looking forward to the journey.
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