One is struck in the study of saints, angels and gods by a pattern that seems quaint and harmless. Yet, it is so common that I know there must be a deeper meaning. There always seem to be guardians and spirits of doors, bridges, exits and entranceways.
Words and ideas work in the short run to get you through school and to impress educators and employers. But they do not work in the long run or in the deep run. We soon find ourselves separate and without wonder.
When 'happiness' eludes us - as, eventually, it always will - we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.
This earth indeed is the very Body of God, and it is from this body that we are born, live, suffer, and resurrect to eternal life. Either all is God's Great Project, or we may rightly wonder whether anything is God's Great Project. One wonders if we humans will be the last to accept this.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Men and women are most alike at their most mature and soulful levels. Men and women are most different only at their most immature and merely physical levels.
Having a school really is the fulfillment of a longtime dream of mine.
Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has been to see how little actual spiritual curiosity there is in so many people.
One would think that people who insist on being monotheistic would be the first in line to walk across the artificial boundaries created by nation states, class systems, cultures and even religions. But often they are the last!
The true mystic is always both humble and compassionate, for she knows that she does not know.
One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action.
Yes, the natural world is the first and primary Bible. We have not honored it, so how could we, or would we, know how to honor and properly use the second Bible, when it was written.
In my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.
It is so important to balance orthodoxy with orthopraxy.
If our love of God does not directly influence, and even change, how we engage in the issues of our time on this earth, I wonder what good religion is.
You have to find some way to not become a cynical or negative person, a person who keeps walking around and opening your eyes in the outside world but inside you close down, a person who stops expecting tomorrow to be better than today.
Ancients knew that you need guidance, patronage and protection as you move from one place or state to another, whenever you cross a bridge. You had better know what you are doing when you leave one group or place to join another.
Egoic consciousness is the one we all normally operate with, until we are told there is something else! Every culture teaches egoic consciousness in different ways. At that level it is all about me, my preferences, my choices, my needs, my desires and me and my group as the central reference point.
Jesus is the very concrete truth revealing and standing in for the universal truth.
Jesus is much more concerned about shaking your foundations, giving you an utterly alternative self image, world image, and God image, and thus reframing your entire reality. Mere inspiration can never do this.
