A mis-directory?

All Things Spiritual shows both the beauties and pitfalls of creating a religious supersite. Meant to fill "the need of the time for greater connection to God," the site is easy to understand. It's also not well maintained -- and, in places, a little misleading.

First, the good. The unadorned design has fast-loading links. And you can hardly ask for more variety: Christian mysticism, Bible-themed museums, Hinduism-related toys, Tibetan singing bowls, Celtic flutes, a Virtual I Ching, Feng Shui tips, prophecies from Nostradamus and a host of others.

There's also meaty material like ancient Chinese texts, and historic Christian leaders like Francis Asbury. You can learn Carl Jung's beliefs on how personality affects spirituality. You can check out an intriguing mix of Judaic art and philosophy called Decoupage for the Soul.

The bad? Well, for one, many of the links are broken. Worse, some are misclassified. A site on yoga is grouped under Taoism. Soka Gakkai, a form of Japanese Buddhism, is under Shintoism. Sufism, a branch of Sunni Islam, is listed separately from that faith. And there's a link under Christianity to A Course in Miracles -- a metaphysical book supposedly dictated by Jesus.

The site's unnamed founders clearly take an interest in the stew of therapy, mysticism and esoterica that is often called the New Age. There's a subhead by that name here. But there are also several others -- Enlightenment, Mind-Body, Meditation, Shamanism, Spiritualism, Psychism, the Paranormal, Out-of-Body Experiences -- that are synonyms or subgroups.

Is that good or bad? Welllllll, I guess it depends on your own tastes.

The Halloween you didn't hear about

As Halloween looms, you'll no doubt hear the usual crossfire: conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews damning the "satanic" holiday, while pagans and secularists rant at "intolerant" fundies. But there are other viewpoints.

For religious opponents, surprising support comes from American Atheists. The article notes that Christmas nativity scenes are often banned from public property, but Halloween decorations are allowed. Yet Wiccans and pagans say Halloween is a holy day for them. "What does this say about the First Amendment aspects?" the article asks.

Last year, Halloween themes became all too real for theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite when she heard of lynching nooses appearing on American campuses, and news of torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. She saw no use for a day of make-believe evil when real horrors haunt us every day.

More general ethical issues pop up on the Santa Clara University site. University fellow Rob Elder asks: Should Americans spend $6.9 billion on a holiday that promotes greed, vandalism and stomach aches?

Then there are the ecological evils of the holiday, according to MSNBC's Marisa Belger. You know, all those plastic costumes and pitchforks and candy wrappers. Belger suggests some ways to celebrate a green Halloween.

The day does have its defenders, such as psychologist Richard Beck. His blog says Halloween helps us "collectively process our eventual death and mortality" and "work through our fears of the uncanny."

Meanwhile, blogger and mother Diane Laney Fitzpatrick figures "if you can't beat 'em . . ." -- so she offers a Catholic activity for Halloween. She suggests religious education teachers actually set up graveyards for their students to walk through, shining flashlights on the headstones. There, they would read epitaphs of departed saints like Francis of Assisi.

A little weird, maybe, but still in the "spirit" of the original All Hallows Day.

Turning the three wheels

We wrap up our week of Buddhist sites with a fun vehicle:

Tricycle

Founded in 1990, Tricycle magazine sports a brisk style for western readers, with snappy writing and a sharp eye on social trends. Much of the content is for subscribers only, but there's also plenty of free Web articles.

One article examines sports spirituality. Another analyzes the recent Religious Landscape Study -- finding, among other things, that most American Buddhists are native born and college educated.

Another writer shudders at politics: "Traditional Buddhist images of hell seem all too familiar in a campaign year. Realms of ice and fire? Sounds like the New Hampshire and Arizona primaries. Demons, hungry ghosts, cursed spirits who hack at one another with iron claws? They're all on Meet the Press."

Nor does Tricycle gloss over Buddhist problems. One writer talks frankly about sexual misconduct even among sangha leaders. Another looks into a clash between Vietnamese Buddhists on how to deal with religious repression there.

Unfortunately, the articles have no print-friendly option. And many of the links to sound and video files don't work.

Navigation can be tricky. There's a mouseover menu, but when the menu options drop down, they often vanish before you can click them. Better to use the site map at the bottom of the homepage.

Tricycle has nice archives on Buddhist beliefs and practices. Especially readable is a short history of the faith. It even tells how Buddhism spread to places like Mongolia, and how it influenced western philosophers.

Woodsy Buddhists

For tonight's Buddhist Web site, we go old school with . . .

Forest Meditation

Tibetan Buddhists may get more media, with their dancing monks and their multicolored sand mandalas -- and, of course, the humble yet flamboyant Dalai Lama. But forest monks, from the ancient Thai Theravada tradition, have their own deep spirituality and supple thought.

Forest Meditation follows a familiar track in telling the story of the Buddha, though it leans heavily on direct quotes from the Pali Canon. But the emphasis seems to be practical teaching rather than tradition. There's lots of help on meditation: chants, breath control, historical background, suggested positions.

The articles can be long -- "Buddhism in a Nutshell" alone is nearly 17,000 words -- but internal hyperlinks mark the 11 chapters. That allows you to read a unit, take time to digest it, then return to where you left off.

Included are various chants and blessings in Pali, stored as mp3 sound files and sometimes text. But don't hop around the site, as you can do with some others. If, for instance, you skip the "Basics" unit, you'll miss definitions of oft-used terms like Dhamma and Vinaya.

Fortunately, footnotes in "Buddhism in a Nutshell" explain those and other concepts. A link to another Theravada site, Access to Insight, is another big help.

Oddly, though, an explanation of Forest Meditation itself -- history, development, its very reason -- is missing. That would have been easy to add, as shown on the Web site of the Abhayagiri Monastery, another Forest Meditation retreat.

Dead Buddhists Society?

Still touring the karmic side of the Web, we sharpen our knives for . . .

Killing the Buddha

"If you meet the Buddha on the road," the medieval master Lin Chi reportedly said, "kill him." For him, enlightenment was farther down the road.

In that spirit, the creators of this challenging Webzine favor the quest over the quick answers. The site died early this year when its three creators dropped it. But three others brought it back in June.

Their work leads largely with stories interwoven with their thoughts and feelings. One contributor shares a disturbing, crystalline memory of a boyhood meeting with his friend, the friend's dad, and dad's one-night stand. Like the other pieces, it's heartfelt and written so smoothly that you almost lose yourself in it.

Gone are the blogs and message boards where readers took casual swipes at Christianity; maybe that's why the editors call it "99 percent fatwa-free." The site does, however, retain its sneers about conventional religion.

Co-editor Ashley Makar disses "Holy-Ghost stories from sweaty preachers telling everyone how to live," although she herself is Coptic Orthodox. And contributor Andrew Boyd mentions the "corruption and backwardness of present-day institutionalized Buddhism in Thailand."

The new design is open and easy on the eyes, with large text on light gray background. But it still has rough edges. When I logged in for this review, the homepage had a big, blank box meant for a picture.

If you're nostalgic for the old KtB, a generous archive goes back to 2000.

Sangha long with us

A thousand pardons for pausing in my week of Buddhist site reviews; I was out of town for a half-week. Let's look next at . . .

Buddhist Wisdom

Siddhartha surely would have been pleased. The homepage of this site uses line drawings on black, relieved only by outlines of varied colors. Links lead to four sections: the story of the Buddha, basic teachings and scriptures, and some pithy sayings. Small pictures of lotus blossoms and the "Om" monogram abound.

An Flash-animated presentation presents some of the Buddha's teachings, including learning by observation and the impermanent nature of the self. The show starts with a Zen-like "bong" of a bell, then proceeds with cartoon-like panels.

The story of how a prince became a religious leader is told reverently and uncritically. The section explaining the Eightfold Path is especially good; most sites of the type simply list titles like "Right Thinking." Here, right thinking is defined as "the development of loving kindness, empathy and compassion."

The sayings are well chosen, drawing not only from the Buddha but others like the Dalai Lama and Lamya Surya Das -- even the Taoism pioneer Lao Tzu. The site also has the lucid, 423-verse Dhammapada, a collection of sayings from the Theravada Pali Canon.

For dessert, may we suggest Pearls of Wisdom, the parent site. It has metaphysical ideas by women, pagans and native Americans. Also interesting are inspirational lyrics by the likes of Enigma, James Ingram, Lenny Kravitz and Alanis Morissette.

Sights and sounds of Buddhism

On our third night looking at Buddhist Web sites, we gaze upon . . .

Visions of Enlightenment

An impressive, Flash-powered site from the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, Calif., this is a near-perfect use of the Internet for religion. It blends beauty and sound -- flute, chants, rippling water -- in sharing knowledge.

Exploring is easy. Simply pick one of four big icons, on the Buddha, Compassionate Beings, Buddhist Sites and Ritual Objects. Each section crosslinks to the others, letting you skip around without returning to the homepage.

For a gimmick-heavy site, Visions of Enlightenment has surprisingly detailed text. Fact boxes pop up everywhere.

Click a keyword in the text, like Theravada, and a box defines it. Roll your mouse pointer over the pictures, and balloons pop up to point out, for instance, why images of the Buddha have long earlobes, or why some begging bowls are made from human skulls.

The four Flash photo essays are a treat in themselves. One, Hollywood Buddha, shows the many ways that city has co-opted the Buddha and his concepts: names of restaurants, clubs and coffeehouses; rock groups like Nirvana; even a bobblehead Buddha for a dashboard.

Once intrigued, you may be frustrated by the lack of a print-friendly mode. But there's a way around that. Simply select the HTML option on the homepage instead of Flash. That brings up conventional text blocks with inline images.

Monkish advice

Welcome to the second night of our look at Buddhist Web sites. Fold yourself into your best lotus blossom position and prepare to . . .

Ask a Monk

What puzzles you about Buddhism? The Cloudwater Zendo community in Cleveland, Ohio, wants to answer it.

Practicing both the Ch'an (Zen) and Pure Land varieties, Cloudwater posts some breezy-sounding answers to common issues. The questions cover things like "Buddhism is just an offshoot of Hinduism, isn't it?" and the chuckle-inducing "Buddhism is the tradition that worships the jolly-looking fellow with the big belly, right?"

Even better: You can write your own question in an online form -- and specify how soon you need the answer. The site also has longer discussions based on reader feedback.

Those chains of questions bring out more nuanced teachings, like whether believers should worship Buddha, or whether human relationships help or hurt the road to enlightenment. Also explained are the differences between Pure Land Buddhism, and its Buddha Amitabha, from Jesus and heaven.

The Cloudwater folks explain concepts like Buddha-fields, transferring merit, and the relationship of a Buddha to a bodhisattva. A chart compares and contrasts Ch'an and Pure Land, but it has so many in-house terms, only a disciple would grasp it fully.

One glitch: Ask a Monk says Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and other religions basically teach the same things. Those who read my last column know my opinions on that. When a faith claims special insights, it necessarily creates differences. Choose any religion you want, but choose you must.

Lotus pray

Whoops, a bit late on the promised weeklong series on Buddhist sites. Without further delay, let's look at:

BuddhaNet

Here's a perfect example of what be accomplished with the Internet and one determined person -- in this case, Venerable Pannyavaro of Sydney, Australia. The Theravada monk started in 1993 with an old-school Bulletin Board Service. Now, BuddhaNet is a world-class publisher of text and music.

The site includes chants, hymns, mantras -- even whole albums of Buddhist pop music, both for adults and for children. It has scriptures of several traditions, including Pali, Chinese and Tibetan. A map-linked directory locates Buddhist centers almost anywhere, from Bolivia to Bahrain to Botswana.

A multi-level course deals with the life of the Buddha, as well as karma, reincarnation and meditation. Some content takes pdf, ebook or RealAudio form.

One refreshing article names 27 distinctiveness of Buddhism; for instance, that it acknowledges no supreme being. So many leaders these days pretend that all religions are basically the same.

And don't miss the site's BuddhaZine. It's full of mind-tickling content: computer art, crossword puzzles, cartoons, articles on psychotherapy and Buddhist architecture, photos from Bhutan, and those hand gestures known as mudras. It also has more traditional art, like the thangka of Buddha Shakyamuni above.

This otherwise lavish site does have a hole: an apparent lack of a FAQ file for western readers (yeah, like me). Such a file might deal, for example, with the clash between the western ideal of self-fulfillment and the Buddhist ideal of self-annihilation.

Some sites do address such issues. We'll look at one tomorrow night.

Tools for spiritual explorers

Fed up with being told how you should believe? Click around Explore Faith, a toolbox to help you find not only what you believe, but how you go about it.

One tool is a 10-question "spiritual profile" that places you in one of six categories -- believer, lover, seeker, maverick, thinker or companion -- then suggests more reading, linked from other places around the site.

The writers deal with matters like grief, forgiveness and how to learn from your dreams. They offer tips on keeping a journal or walking a labyrinth. They also have at classic questions, like "Why does God let bad things happen in the world?" and "Isn't searching for the God within just an excuse for narcissism?"

The site takes an Episcopal point of view, but the contributors couldn't be more varied. They include Bruce Feiler, author of the Walking the Bible bestsellers; Marcus Borg, a maven of the revisionist Jesus Seminar; Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh; Sylvia Maddox, a retreat leader in San Antonio, Texas; and Ram Dass, a 1960s-vintage guru who blends yoga, Buddhism, Sufism and Judaism. Also here are evangelical Christians like Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project.

Their writing styles and talents vary, of course, and they add up to a pretty wordy site: few pictures, no videos, no Flash effects. The animation, actually, is in your own mind and spirit. After all, you're the explorer.

STARTING SUNDAY: A week-long look at Buddhist Web sites.

Happy Hindu New Year

The Hindu Festival of Lights, starting this year on Oct. 28, is like Christmas and New Year combined. And it's celebrated not only in India, but wherever Indians have settled: the U.S., the U.K., Africa and South America.

Learning about Divali online, though, can be a problem. Most Web sites for the holiday are either 1) laden with Sanskrit terms, assuming you already know the stories being taught, or 2) glitzy online catalogs for holiday sweets, jewelry, artifacts, incense and the like.

But there are exceptions.

Start with this bare-bones site, from the University of Kansas Medical School. Part of a list of holidays, it has a nice, simple description -- no Flash, no pictures -- of each of the five days of the Divali observance. It also links to a Hindu site that explains why Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and fortune shown above, is honored on Divali.

Now you may be ready for the holiday site by Rangoli. VGreets has a concise explanaton of these seasonal designs sometimes called visual prayers. You can also find Rangoli galleries here, here and here.

Want more depth? India Travelogue provides a lengthy, 1,900-word essay on the festival, how it varies around India, and the three stories associated with the time.

Thanking Billy Graham

Tons of books, Web sites, TV specials and movies -- including the new Billy: The Early Years -- focus on Billy Graham. But two of his grandsons saw a gap: What about those he preached to?

Their answer is Thank You Billy, a message board for the many people who were touched by Graham's six decades of ministry.

Brothers Basyle and Aram Tchividjian put up the Web site last year, and it already has more than 500 anecdotes. Among them:

• A gang leader in New Zealand who became a Christian and turned his life around.

• A woman who vividly recalls a Graham crusade in Romania, 27 years ago, when the country was still under Marxist rule.

• A single mother who became a believer in Jesus from watching a crusade on TV, while stoned.

• A Georgia man who was not only inspired to live for Jesus through a Graham movie, but took up guitar after hearing the movie's sound track.

One glitch: If you call up a story, then hit the "back" arrow on your browser, it'll return you to the homepage instead of the story list. Use the "Close" tool on the message itself. But even then, you may have to scroll down to the spot you left.

Also here are six videos about Grham from a variety of people, including Pat Boone and Joni Eareckson. The videos introduce the Tchividjians' new book, Invitation, which has 40-50 anecdotes along with photos from the Graham archives.

Boone reappears on the tribute music video Thank You Billy Graham, linked from his own site. Singers include Faith Hill, Michael McDonald, LeAnn Rimes, Kenny Rogers and others, with an introduction by Bono. You can also download the song as an mp3.

Does God need spying?

"From politics to the arts, science to the economy, sexuality to ecology" -- it's an ambitious mission statement for Godspy. Taking a Catholic perspective, but accessible to others as well, Godspy is part news, part analysis, part repost from other sites.

The sleek, white-on-black site runs literate TV and movie reviews, like the new film version of Brideshead Revisited. It carries a New York Times article about belief in God being higher among physicists than biologists. And it mentions an effort by the Vatican to serve as a patron of fine arts, as it was during the Renaissance.

All those and more are lined up in 12 links across the top, although stories are often under two or more. But if those aren't enough, pore through the 40 topics down the left side -- everything from sharia to stem cells to secularism. You'll even find those good ol' church topics, like sin and love.

Some of Godspy sounds a bit defensive or belligerent. It cites a Vatican conference that concluded Pope Pius XII "spared no effort" to help Jews during World War II. And business writer Angelo Matera starts a column with, "If there's anyone in the mainstream media willing to listen to the Church these days (I doubt it) ..."

Have a look at the archives, too. They include a look at matters like religion and politics, the L'Arche movement, and Benedict XVI's call to a conversationist lifestyle. The page is pretty, but grab all the articles you can: At least half of the links are expired.

United we sing, and maybe dance

Sure, the world is awash in ignorance and prejudice, but what can one person do?

Ask Jack Bloomfield. In 2004 he founded One Planet United, an organization that brings together people as varied as Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Pentecostal Christians -- all in the simmering melting pot of South Florida.

What does he get them to do? Talk out differences. Cool down tensions. Understand people different from themselves. And sing and dance together -- with choirs and soloists joining in annual concerts called Faith in Music.
Even better, you can do it, too -- with model plans, called "templates," on this Web site.

Like "Unity in our Community," a program using music, dance and drama in community celebrations. Like "Looking Glass Theater," a series of eight sketches with morals of acceptance. "Like OPU Clubs," where middle and high school students can promote dialogue and mediate intergroup problems.

The free documents, 150k to 300k long, don't take any expertise. Each project is broken down into committees, time requirements, press releases, program outlines. There are even suggested theme songs, like Where is the Love? by the Black-Eyed Peas.

A list of OPU-endorsed speakers is a bit heavy on the New Age, with the likes of Gary Zukav, Deepak Chopra and Neale Donald Walsch. But it also has a few conventional folks like Della Reese and Harold Kushner.

But that's the beauty of the templates. Whether you share all of Bloomfield's beliefs or not, the plans will still work for you. Imagine: trusting his tools with people he's never seen. That goes even beyond interfaith work.

Grace: Amazing, and unfair

Fog rolls in on a coastline, toward a lone figure on a rock. Philip Yancey's bearded, gray-haired face silently invites us to sit awhile and consider who God is to us -- and, perhaps, who we are to God.

Over three decades, Yancey has made an enduring impact in evangelical circles, with 12 books selling more than 14 million copies. This site hints at his insights and gift for words.

In an interview: "I can't think of any argument against God that isn't already included in the Bible."

In his travel notes: "I cannot claim that grace is fair. By definition, it's unfair: We get the opposite of what we deserve."

Sadly, Yancey has stopped adding to his notes. The last was in January 2005. At least we can still browse the site for photos, interviews, a biography and a book list.

The standout is the subsite for his book What's So Amazing About Grace? It opens with a synth treatment of the hymn Amazing Grace, with a photo montage of ... well, so many people. Bill and Hillary. Bill Gates. Mother Teresa. Timothy McVeigh. Mao Zedong.

Then the window moves to anecdotes from readers who have experienced grace in their own lives -- set to a soundtrack of howling wind and flapping shutters. The clear message: In a cold, uncaring world, we need a God who cares about us.

Many of the book thumbnails are broken; geez, where is that Webmaster? Use this link instead. It'll list all the books, in all their versions -- hardcover, softcover, audio, DVD, and several kinds of ebook.

Unearthing beliefs

Archaeology is more than stones and bones, you know. It's also about raging arguments and clashing worldviews. And Biblical Archaeology Review has been in the thick of it since 1975.

The editors naturally want you to subscribe (for $13.97), but their Web site has fascinating freebies.

One article is on a signet thought to have belonged to nasty ol' Queen Jezebel of the Bible. Another is "Gabriel's Revelation," an apocalyptic message on a 3-foot-tall block carved before the birth of Jesus. Still another is on a cave in Jordan that may have sheltered a church before 70 A.D.

A caveat: BAR sometimes enters the debates itself. Editor Hershel Shanks protested the 2007 Muslim digging under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, saying it could damage ancient Hebrew artifacts. BAR also maintains a blog on the flimsy pseudo-documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which flamed out on The Discovery Channel last year.

One of BAR's own buried treasures is a collection of picture galleries, three levels down and not linked from the homepage. Among the 17 galleries are artifacts from Greece and Masada, gold and turquoise jewelry from Afghanistan, and drawings of the Middle East from 1838.

Still another freebie: downloadable booklets, on things like the 2,700-year-long roots of the Olympic games. You have to sign onto BAR's e-mail list to fetch them, but that's free, too. And the list has news clips from other publications as well.