Weeks 26-28: Doorway

Cold Mountain: The Legend of Han Shan and Shih Te, The Original Dharma Bums - Sean Michael Wilson, illustrated by Akiko Shimojima

The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims - Mustafa Akyol

   Here comes the ice cream truck again! As small as our neighborhood is, you'd think we wouldn't get the ice cream truck three times a day. Lots of kids around, though, makes for good business I suppose.
   Jesus the rabbi, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the prophet, Jesus the bodhisattva, Jesus the logos, Jesus the avatar, Jesus the guru. Am I getting out of hand? How can Jesus be the door, gate, way into the love and appreciation of non-Christian religion and practice? Cold Mountain indirectly and Islamic Jesus directly provide examples...

notes
Cold Mountain
-The most glorious warhorse ever sat/ can't match a crippled kitty/ in a race to catch a rat.
-I just clap time for the flowers/as they dance,
-I can remember the taste of that dirt.
-In the summer it's light as winds;/ in the winter it's my quilt./ Winter or summer, of use in both/ year upon year, just this.
-The Tao's a road/ that runs straight through.
-You could try to make it/ to cold moutain
-Sunrise, and the mist would blind a/ hidden dragon
-cloud roads are in empty space

Islamic Jesus
-fearful rumors about secret decision in the West to Christianize and conquer Turkey and other Muslim countries (history of church-politics-military overlap in Christian missions)
 -"the only evidence we possess in the Gospels would suggest that his contemporaries found it impossible to make sense of him..." A.N. Wilson
-"the steep ascent...It is freeing a slave, or feeding on a day of hunger an orphaned relative, or a poor man in the dust. Then to be one of those who have faith, and urge each other to steadfastness and urge each other to compassion" Qur'an
-Qn - believers are "those who have faith and do right actions"
-Jewish Christians and potential influence on early Islam
-parallels between stories in Qur'an and apocryphal Gospels
-Tawrat - Torah, Zabur - Psalms, Injil - Gospel
-are "nasara" the Nazoreans?
-Mary - major character in Qur'an
-rock inscription in Negev, 7th c., "Amen, the Lord of Worlds, the Lord of Moses and Jesus"
-rasul - one who is sent; nabi - news giver
-prophecy of messenger to come - "Ahmad" - person Ahmad, Muhammah, or as adjective "praised"
-Jesus - son of Mary, Word, Spirit, Messiah
-parallels - Kingdom of God/ Caliphate, Halahka/ Sharia, Jesus for Jewish renewal/ Jesus for Islamic renewal