The Taoist Zhuangzi (4th century BCE) told this tale: Once there was a frog that lived in a deep, narrow well. He had never seen anything else. One day, a sea turtle came upon the well and shouted down the deep, narrow hole: “Hello! Anybody down there?” “Yes,” said the frog. “Come on down for a visit and see the… Read More »Broader Horizons
I ran into this online the other day; the title of the article fairly well says it all: “New study links intrinsic religious motivation to higher-level patterns of thought.” The article says: “The main takeaway from this study is that people who are motivated to pursue religion or spirituality and integrate it fully into their life while finding it contributing… Read More »It’s Called Application . . . or is it Integration?
“ . . . courage shall fail the king and the officials; the priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded” (Jeremiah 4:9 NRSV). I don’t remember how I ran across those lines from the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, but they ring true—fearful, appalled, astounded . . . kings, officials, priests, prophets. Sounds like the headlines, though prime ministers and presidents… Read More »Priests, Prophets, and Process
In order to be spiritually and mentally healthy, it is absolutely imperative that each of us not forget to exist.
We live in stories. We live so deeply and completely in stories that it’s hard to see the narratives that we live inside as narratives. In unexamined life, the stories we have been told and the stories we’ve learned to tell ourselves appear to be “reality.” In order to see the stories for what they are, we have to stop, take a… Read More »Going Meta with G.K. Chesterton
As the sacred center of Greek society, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi has long represented the core of European thought. Everyone in Europe and its many colonies knows the first of the injunctions written on the temple’s wall: γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnōthi seautón, ”know thyself”) Wise and difficult words if ever there were wise and difficult words. And, oh, my,… Read More »That Certainty Thing
Humanism is meta. Meta-religion.
As a senior minister for a congregation, I attempt to keep up with what’s happening in the world of religion, more or less. The amount of information is daunting, but keeping up with major shifts and movements in US religious practice is part of my job. I realized recently that I had been missing a major phenomenon happening in plain… Read More »Deconstruction: Party Like It’s 1799
Nowadays, I have to admit that I wonder if the “human project” has two flaws: the humans and the project.
Religion. It is emotion, all the way down. It is pre-verbal. It is pre-conceptual.
