Today more than ever our planet needs us in community. Our species is so careless and disorderly, so thoughtless and destructive, so self-involved and unconcerned over the catastrophic impact our behavior is having on the larger web of life – upon which our own viability and well-being depend, it seems necessary to point out –Continue reading “The Underground to Community”
Author Archives: tractsofrevolution
The American Bipolar Disorder
During the insufferably long campaign circus leading up to the 2016 US Presidential election I offered a perspective on what I believed was the real choice then coming into focus. It wasn’t between Clinton’s domestic and Trump’s international priorities. Nor was it over someone who exposed security secrets of our country, or someone else whoContinue reading “The American Bipolar Disorder”
The Beginning of Wisdom
In the ethical monotheism of late Judaism and early Christianity, Yahweh (originally a minor warrior deity of a small federation of habiru tribes in the region of Sinai who eventually became the creator of heaven and earth) was regarded as the supreme judge over the destiny of human beings. He demanded exclusive worship and absolute obedienceContinue reading “The Beginning of Wisdom”
The Illusion of Who You Are
Post-theism doesn’t deny our need for salvation, only that we should expect it from elsewhere. Moreover, it’s not about getting rescued or delivered to a better place, free of enemies or bodies to drag us down. Such themes are common in so-called popular religion, particularly its theistic varieties, where believers are conditioned to anticipate theContinue reading “The Illusion of Who You Are”
Where Love Can Only Grow
We are presently witnessing a massive phase shift in the living system of our planet. Scientists have been noting and measuring incremental changes in climate temperatures, polar ice caps and sea levels, attributable to a thickening blanket of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which traps radiant heat of the sun near Earth’s surface. Breakdowns inContinue reading “Where Love Can Only Grow”
Spirituality Basics 3: The Liberated Life
As the third in my trilogy of posts on Spirituality Basics, this one will move our focus to the question of what the liberated life looks like. We grappled with the predicament of our human condition as off-center and caught in the delusion of separateness; and then spent some time on salvation as the breakthroughContinue reading “Spirituality Basics 3: The Liberated Life”
Spirituality Basics 2: The Beyond Within
In Spirituality Basics: The Human Condition I explored our situation as it comes together (or perhaps rather, falls apart) around the delusion of a separate identity known as ego. Insofar as our ego is insecure and driven by ambition to resolve or compensate for this insecurity in various ways, we end up in an evenContinue reading “Spirituality Basics 2: The Beyond Within”
Spirituality Basics 1: The Human Condition
One complaint that can legitimately be leveled against religion is over its tendency to complicate something which is really quite simple. An overlay of codes, rules, values, and beliefs quickly obscures the shining truth at its core. Tragically this accumulation of secondary material can become a religion’s primary concern, where it gets so caught upContinue reading “Spirituality Basics 1: The Human Condition”
These Three Remain
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:13 Each of us is on a human journey, but only a few will reach our destination. A sizable fraction will be cut short by accident, violence, malnutrition or disease – from causes the rest ofContinue reading “These Three Remain”
The Imaginarium of Belief
Humans are a storytelling species. Anything else that may set us apart from our fellow earthlings – our art, technology, industry, government, science, spirituality, and personal life – is made possible only as part of a larger endeavor in constructing meaning. As one of our ultimate concerns, making meaning through storytelling is how we orientContinue reading “The Imaginarium of Belief”
Tracts of Revolution 