I missed doing a blog entry in December, the first month missed since these Three Testaments projects hit full stride in 2009. But things have been happening, including an item to share with those following 3T related developments. As a result of the warm reception of Three Testaments, the book and the play, at Oxford University and Trinity College last summer, I have been elected as a “Fellow” of the Royal Society for the Arts. The support Three Testaments has received in North America is getting almost equal traction at last in Europe. Thank you all for promoting this work.

This honor came through nomination by three prominent members of the intellectual community (from Canada, USA and the West Indies, as it happens) and submission of Three Testaments as previous work, the play as ongoing work, and a preview draft of my future work, Four Testaments: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Dhammapada, Bhagavad Gita. Since she is the president of the RSA it probably did not hurt that mention was made of HRH Princess Anne having herself written a foreword for one of my previous books. (The Queen is the Royal “patron” of the society, but Anne is actively engaged.)

Among the original members of the society in 1754 you have Benjamin Franklin, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx and Adam Smith. Stephen Hawking was elected last year, but the only other Canadian member I know of in my lifetime was John Diefenbaker. Of the many living members worldwide, the most active person we might recognize these days is Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee. "Tim," as I call him now, is the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Anyway it’s all to the good of the Three Testament cause and the RSA will launch my next book at the society’s headquarters in London about a year from now, … and on my card after my name I can now just use the post-nominal FRSA instead of a string of old degrees.

Play production preparations are proceeding apace, and we’ll have more details on that in February. The dates of the premiere performances in Niagara Falls, NY are now firm as June 12 to June 21, 2015, beginning with a one day conference on THE TERROR OF THESE TIMES in which academics and religious professionals will discuss the 3T book and view the play to consider three responses to those whose religions are sometimes represented by terror: Convert them! Kill them! or, Engage with them! More on that soon too.