Tag Archives: Religion

Dig your well deep

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 2 Comments

It is not naive or small-minded to settle on one spiritual path or rest with one tradition or religion. There is a time in life for being skeptical, for questioning everything, but it is only good for a time. It doesn’t do a lot of good for the long run. The ego wants to keep us in a place of questioning, just as it wants to keep us in a place of surety.

We must dig a well deep within our tradition. Learn the tools of the other wells, yes, but find the well we will dig or we will never get to the life-water that is deep under the surface. To dig many shallow wells in many traditions never gets us to the water. When we finally get deep down, we find that there is only one water… one life. But we have found it with our well. I will meet you there in the underground aquifer of love, Truth, and union.

When we come out the other side, when we cross over that line of being done with the skepticism, we recognize that that time was good, just as the time for literalism was good. In the place, we see that we have much farther to go on the journey, many places to find ourselves, and it is ok that we are not there yet.

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Rohr – Christians have a phd in “either/or”

Posted on January 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

Thank you for your words, once again, Richard. Here, he talks about the all-too-common dualism in Christianity (about the 7:00 mark). From the Evolutionary Christianity website.

Richard Rohr on Evolutionary Christianity

Other highlights…

  • how did we go from the inclusive son of God, who spends time with tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes into an exclusive religion in his honor? (44:00)
  • all creation is incarnation, not just in us, or in Jesus, but all the way back t0 15 billion years ago.
  • If it’s compassion, it’s universal compassion.
  • If only we can stop seeing ourselves merely as a religion in competition with, and see ourselves as a gift, as all religions are a gift to us. If we can just be Jesus to the world and let the cards fall where they may (as Mother theresa said). If Christians could just be Jesus, rather than making him into a product or an opponent, always one who builds boundaries instead of bridges… that would be the evolution of Christianity and a much more gracious world. (54:00)

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Posted in Quotes, Scripture, spiritual formation, spirituality

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The Golden Egg

Posted on January 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

A STORY as told by Fr. Anthony de Mello:

A reading from the scriptures:

This is what the Lord says: There was once a goose that laid a golden egg each day. And the farmer’s wife, who owned the goose, delighted in the riches that those eggs brought her. She was an avaricious woman, however, and could not wait patiently from day to day for her daily egg. She decided to kill the goose and get the eggs all at once.

Thus far the word of God!

An atheist heard that text from the scriptures and scoffed: You call that the word of God! A goose that lays golden eggs! It just goes to show the absurdity of your scriptures.

When a religious scholar read that text, he reacted thus: The Lord clearly tells us that there was a goose that laid golden eggs. If the Lord says this, then it must be true, no matter how absurd it appears to our poor human minds.

Now you will ask, as well you may, how an egg, while not ceasing to be an egg, can, at the same time, be golden. Different schools of religious thought attempt to explain it differently. But what is called for here is an act of faith in this mystery that baffles human understanding.

There was even a preacher who, inspired by that text, traveled through towns and villages zealously urging people to accept the fact that God had created golden eggs at some point in history.

It is better to teach people the evils of avarice than to promote belief in golden eggs.

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The marks of a progressing civilization

Posted on October 7, 2010 | 1 Comment

I’ve been reflecting on a quote from Thomas Moore, in his book, The Re-Enchantment with Everyday Life. I posted a part of it on Facebook and it has raised some really good questions.  Moore writes,

We mark our progress as a civilization by what we see as advances in hardware, and that criterion, assumed so readily by the population at large, blinds us to other possible values such as community, reverence, wisdom, the care and education of children, and the condition of the natural world. I would wish to be a member of a community that judeged itself on the happiness of its children rather than on the unhindered flow of its mechanical inventions… Enchantment arises whenever we move so deeply into anything we’re doing that its interiority stirs the heart and the imagination.

An enchanted ecology comes into being when our concern for the environment goes beyond materialistic elements in nature and culture: to children rather than machines, trees rather than excessive paper products, and home rather than shelter.

When I desire the happiness in our children, and mark our progress as humanity by that, I am not referring to children as never crying. I am not ruling out other marks of a progressive society, but merely desiring a shift in priority. What does our society claim as proof of our progression? Happiness is something more than self-satisfied, self-interested, and self-serving. It something greater than an innocent or unaware naivety. There is a fantastic article in YES! Magazine on the History of Happiness.

The Lakota Indian tribe have a value that they seek to make their decisions with a full consideration of the next seven generations. Do we do this? Continue reading →

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Posted in Community, family, Questions, Quotes, spiritual formation

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Reflections on tradition and community

Posted on October 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

My friend Marc, had some questions regarding tradition and community in response to my reflections on our ceremony, and I think it’s worth a post.

I am curious to know what place (if any) you think tradition has in the concept of community. Communities are constantly changing — people come and go, they age, structures are built and torn down, etc. — but perhaps ceremonies (weddings, graduations, national anthems sung before ball games, etc.) play an important role in maintaining a steady hand amid all the flux. Certainly, there are plenty of ways to have a wedding, but at what point is a wedding no longer a wedding and becomes something else? Is it OK if it becomes something else entirely? How does that affect the community? Are certain communities more adaptable to change and, if so, is that adaptability something that can be intentionally developed or does it just happen?

I am currently working toward a Master’s in Public Administration, so I am so eager to hear your thoughts about tradition, change, and how communities can address the two. (Government is infamously slow to change, but I think the public’s longing for tradition can play a big role in that.)

There is a huge place for tradition, ceremony, and ritual in community. As Marc said, communities are constantly changing and yes, government has been slow in adapting… I would say, to an extent, religion has as well. Tradition helps us stay grounded in history which is absolutely essential if we are to adapt to change well. It’s a paradox really. Adapt yet ground in history. So, we as a community must know and celebrate (or even lament) our history, and yet we must continue to build new ways of doing ceremony and ritual.

Tradition often gets developed unintentionally, but ritual and ceremony MUST be developed intentionally. Continue reading →

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