Because I’m focusing on NaNoWriMo and writing 50,000 words of fiction this month, I thought I’d pull up a few posts from the archives. This particular post was written about 3.5 years ago and was part of my OC Pilgrimage series, where I attended various churches and visited religious sites in Orange County and reported [...]

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After a long hiatus, I am starting the popular OC Pilgrimage series back up. In these posts, I reflect on my visits to religious meetings and spiritual sites in Southern California from my perspective as an atheist and someone who is genuinely curious about religion. In 2008, I am going to try to visit one [...]

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Sacrificed a day of studying and took GameBoy up to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory‘s Annual Open House. It’s a huge event. In fact, it’s a lot like Disneyland–distant parking lots, gaggles of families with young kids, and long lines. Only instead of rides, there’s science. And science beats out everything that Disneyland has to offer, [...]

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Any journey, even that of an exodus (from religion), is personal. We can make similar stops, walk together for a time, and show each other signposts, but we cannot make the same journey. That said, I’m stealing John’s category. John’s pilgrimage is explicitly OC. Mine is not yet limited to any area, although there is [...]

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It’s been too long since I’ve posted on the OC Pilgrimage, but I’m committed to starting it up again this year. My goal is a bit more modest but also more manageable: one new religious or spiritual locale and/or event each month. This month Jana, the kiddos, friend Bonny and I visited the Orange County [...]

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My OC Pilgrimage has been on hiatus for the past six months or so, but I’m starting it back up.¬† This year, I hope that some of you can join me on a bit of respectful religious tourism. The first station for 2007 is the Islamic Center of Orange County.¬† The local interfaith group is [...]

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Somewhere I read about a person who saw a bumpersticker that said “tourist on earth” and this made him contemplate what being a tourist meant. To him, it meant: seeing everything as new, being open to whatever experience comes, and appreciating the things that are appreciated by the locals. This is much paraphrased and informed [...]

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You may have noticed more growing pains. I’ve wanted to switch from a two-column to a three-column layout for some time now. I can fit more info, but I’ll have to move away from the minimalist, airy look I prefer. I’m doing patch jobs on the live site while I work off-line on a brand [...]

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My 8th pilgrimage was to a nondescript alley in downtown LA that was the birthplace of the 20th century global Pentecostal movement. I visited it on the eve of the Pentecostal centennial celebration. One hundred years ago, the black preacher William Joseph Seymore, ignited a spiritual spark among his (then radical) interracial congregation that spread [...]

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I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus–the past month has left me physically and emotionally exhausted, between work and school projects and helping with the Sunstone regional conference. The past couple of days have been restful. So to ease back into my blog posting, I’m going to let someone else do all of the [...]

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