SPIRITUAL JOURNAL 2001
Author
of:
How to Develop A Spiritual Journal
Sitemap of Dan Kenneth Phillips
October 28, 2001 (Sunday) - Bread and Tulips
I am
attempting to begin this online journal today. I have added all the
components, a IPAQ computer, a beam me up Scotty FTP program, and believe
it will be possible to FTP this site daily from wherever I am. At least
it is worth a try, right!
Lots of people know me from my Thomas Merton
site and my How to Develop A Spiritual Journal.
Those are only a couple of the sites of mine on the web. The entire
list is found in the sitemap and includes
several travel books and an assortment of other oddities.
I have just finished
my Alaskan Adventures and Other Stories and
placed it on the web. It includes a journal my wife 
Janet
and I made to Alaska in August of 2001. It was a wonderful time and
a nice vacation for us. One of the highlights was sitting with Vernl
Matteson and his family. He was a minister from Wisconsin and we ate
with his family each night and share the daily adventures we had. They
were a real blessing for the trip. Religiously, I saw several churches
in Juneau and Sitka and went in several of them and said a prayer. I
am sort of like "Wulfstan of Worchester" who could never pass
up a church and always went inside to pray.
Yesterday, J and I went
to see the movie "Bread and Tulips," an Italian farce with
english subtitles. We really enjoyed it. It was about a woman whose
family just expected her to be a housekeeper and that was all. So she
took a vacation, found some people who respected and loved her, and
arranged flowers in a flower shop. A neat story!
Yes, the movies in my
life. Last week I realized I am not like most men. I don't hunt, I don't
go to many ballgames althought I enjoy watching them, and instead spend
my time with more mundane things like amateur radio, reading, watching
movies, and working on webpages. The movies viewing I owe to Dr. Charles
McGlon who was a professor of mine at seminary in Louisville, Kentucky,
in the early 70's. I had a movie course under him and began to realize
the importance of movies. Since then, I have been hooked. All his fault
for teaching me about the "religiousity" of movies and their
importance. He didn't live long after I left. In fact he was taking
over 20 pills a day while I was there. His heart was failing, but his
real "heart for movies" he shared with us."
Yesterday morning I
also saw "Babbett's Feast", another exceptional religious
movie with the theme "anything is possible." Worth seeing!
Well this is the beginning of this journal. We will see how it goes.
(3:15 p.m.) I can't seem to get started this afternoon. J and I went to church this morning and ate some stir fry Chinese meal at home. We rested but couldn't sleep and didn't feel like doing anything else.
I watched a couple of football games and read some from Merton's journals.