In the Fall I plan to begin writing Staring Through the Darkness: Faith and the Fear of Death. While this book is partly a memoir of my journey from animal catholicism to fundamental Pentacostalism to a blend of non-dual Christianity and Eastern Theology, it is a story about my chronic and life-long fear of death. My search for faith has not only been an attempt to assuage my fear of death (with this fear being my sole reason for getting graduate degrees in religious studies and philosophy of religion), it is also a story of this search for faith led me to see my beliefs as a sort of idolatry or a way of preserving my ego. In the end that faith, and that ego, had to go through a living death that would enable me to not only reformulate the way I thought of what it means to be spiritual, but also as a means of seeing death (both of the ego and the sort that ends our life) as an intricate and vital part of what it means to have faith. While the story is told with a certain amount of sadness and tragedy, it is also told with humor and wit. In the end, while the fear of death may not been extinguished, I have found there is (or may be) a way to reframe the "tragic sense of life" so as to make it a partner that pros us to get beyond ourself and begin to see everything, God, humanity and nature, as One. I will try and post updates as they become available.