Sermon 5.3

Sermon 5.3 Copyright 2026 David Santin Kilday DSK Good Christians are said to wrestle with their God. American individuals rarely drift into church on Sundays but can be found reading and contemplating their Bibles riverside at the oddest times. I think of Jack Kerouac, our great American novelist, paging through Goddard’s The Buddhist Bible on the side of the road while thumbing from New York to San Francisco via Denver or on fire-watch in a spotting-cabin on a mountain peak contemplating a granite mountain, impermanence, and the Void. We speak with our gods as David did, singing in his cave, the Psalms of The Old Testament of the Holy Bible. Are we closer to God when we are in congregation or are we closer to our gods when we sing to ourselves in the isolation required for reading in the caves of our minds where we wrestle with the spiritual texts of the world to improve our humanity and its capacity for reason, Law, and peace. The first spiritual text I read through completely was Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha (1992). Siddhartha is a novelization of the life of the prince Siddhartha who became, through suffering and its mitigation in the practice of meditation and the middle path, Buddha, the enlightened one, Nirvanic, a perfection of peace. Then, I read Norman Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son (1997). This book is a novelization of the life of Christ which begins with Christ’s immersion by John the Baptist. Christ's parabalic life among the human beings of earth–from the throngs of people to feed with bread and fish to the solitude of his agonies on the cross–are converted into Mailer’s prose. Mailer's prose in this novelation is spare and concise. The Holy Bible is a long term reading project for me. I have read into The Book of Ezekiel in The Old Testament and up to The Book of Revelations in the New Testament. Many spiritual books are on my to-be-read works of the spirit like The Holy Quran, The Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gida, The Rig Veda, The Pali Canon, and the Tao te Chi. To Henry Adams, the island fortress of Chartres represented the union of the church and the military outside of the secular authority of the State and its laws. Henry Adams became obsessed with the architecture of cathedrals, and wrote a book called Mount Saint Michel and Chartres in which he seemed interested in the degrees of angles, mathematics, and different ways architecture imposes order. Duke is known for its Cathedral. This famous, Gothic architecture structure, home to many religions and sects in the Duke Community, is the upper member in of the cross to which form the architecture of Duke’s West Campus conforms. The Heinz Cathedral on the campus of The University of Pittsburgh in Oakland is known for its portrayal of secular artists and scientists in its stained glass windows. Duke required two religion class credits to graduate. I chose to take a class on Comparative Religion and a class on African American Religion in America. In the Comparative Religion class, I created a term paper which was a written dialogue between a Christian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist for my final essay. In Duke's African American Religion class, taught by Professor C. Eric Lincoln, we learned about how African Americans formed religious communities as a response to the dehumanations and indignities of slavery and how this religious impulse affiliated with various Christian sects including Methodism, Episcopalian, Baptist, and Muslim. To honor him, Gemini responds to a question about the, sadly, only African American professor of my formal education (this was the 1980s and Professor Lincoln was a black spearhead in the field of the white university): “Dr. C. Eric Lincoln (1924–2000) was a distinguished professor of Religion and Culture at Duke University from 1976 until his retirement in 1993. A sociologist, theologian, poet, and novelist, Lincoln was one of the foremost authorities on African American religious institutions and race relations in the United States. Key Books by Dr. C. Eric Lincoln The Black Church in the African American Experience (1990, co-authored with Lawrence H. Mamiya) Considered the landmark study on the subject, this book was the result of a massive 10-year research project involving interviews with over 1,800 Black clergy. It comprehensively examines the history, sociology, and political/cultural role of seven major Black Christian denominations in America. The Black Muslims in America (1961) Originating from his doctoral dissertation, this groundbreaking sociological study provided the first in-depth academic analysis of the Nation of Islam and coined the widely used term "Black Muslim". Race, Religion, and the Continuing American Dilemma (1984) A critical examination of how religious beliefs and racial dynamics shape the ethical and social framework of American society. The Black Church Since Frazier (1974) An evaluation of the developments and shifts within African American religious institutions following E. Franklin Frazier's earlier sociological assessments. If you are looking to replace your copy, both The Black Church in the African American Experience and The Black Muslims in America remain widely available through major booksellers and academic presses (Gemini AI).” In class, my study of Martin Luther King included his strategies on nonviolence The Black Muslims, by personal experience, I know to be contemplative, clean, well-groomed, disciplined, and alcohol and drug free. Matters of the spirit are the matters of a limited number of texts. Anthropologists research the religions and myth-systems of societies as they rise and fade away over time. I was raised, baptized, attended church, sang in the church choir, and I was reluctantly confirmed in the Methodist faith. I attended church in my childhood. I attended church weekly until I went off to North Carolina and matriculated at Duke in 1986. I really haven't attended church since 1986 although I often think and read about matters of the spirit. As it says in the Bible, when I was a child, I thought like a child. Children need guidance and instruction Since I became an adult, I have learned about the spirit, in the solitude required by reading, alone. Adults, who are self-educating, can read the books of the spirit. Don't forget, life should never be the life-of-only-one-book, and you are not sophisticated in America unless you have completely read 500 proper books and written 1,000,000 solid words with your body, eyes and hands. Only in this way will you restructure your mind. Other countries have higher standards. What's left for the rest of us? The Hamilton County Library is available to everyone. Get a library card, if you don't have one. They're free. The library contains the great works about the spirit, the great works of literature, poetry, and philosophy, and access to many educational resources for all of our self-improvement and continuing education. I own a 650 book research library, which I often consult while writing, which I keep organized in bookshelves placed strategically around my quarters. Here, I'm working into the eighth hour of my Sunday morning and it is past nine. You are free to read this document at David Santin Kilday DSK on Ghost.org but you are not legally permitted to further use my intellectual property in any way. To conclude my personal thoughts on religion, I should remark on the Rastafarian religion of Jamaica. Part of Rastafarian religious practice is smoking marijuana as a sacrament. Since the effects of smoking marijuana are pacific and contemplative, the use of marijuana is seen as bringing us closer to our better nature. I smoke marijuana legally in Ohio as all adults are legally permitted to do. I have been a card carrying member of the Ohio Medical Marijuana Registry since its inception in 2019. I have used marijuana as a Doctor prescribed medication for pain since 2019according to Law. We medical marijuana patients plowed the row for the legal use of marijuana for all adults in Ohio which began with the sale of marijuana at the state medical marijuana dispensaries to all adults with cash and Ohio state driver's license or state ID, way back in August 2024. It is even legal in Ohio to grow marijuana for your personal consumption in Ohio now: the law stimulates that we Ohioans can grow 6 marijuana plants per person and 12 marijuana plants total per household here. Why would anyone live anywhere else? Obey the law: only buy your marijuana at the state-affiliated “Dispensaries,” give yourself at least an hour after you use marijuana before you drive, and only use marijuana at home. Marijuana’s effects are benign and beautific. Of course, we know from the etymology of the word “assassin” that the formidable Hashassin fought best, most precisely, under the influence of hash a black, smokable resin made from the sap of the unfertilized, female marijuana plant. The Rastafarians of Jamaica revere the late Emperor of Ethiopia: Haile Selassie. Haile Selassie, a native African, ruled Ethiopia during successive waves of attacks from the white, world powers. Ethiopia fought many bloody battles but never succumbed to Colonization. Amen