tractsofrevolution

How Do You Lean Into Reality?

Who among us can resist the invitation to identify ourselves on some grid or scale or chart of personality characteristics? As long as we don’t have to feel as if we are being stuffed inside a box or stabbed to a pin-board, classified and labeled as only this, the exercise can be endlessly fascinating. There’sContinue reading “How Do You Lean Into Reality?”

Grief Into Gratitude

Today marks the first anniversary of my mother’s passing. In one sense it is difficult to believe an entire year has gone by. I’ve only lived fifty-two revolutions of annual time: Nine months were lived inside her, fifty years were lived outside her, and now one year has gone by without her in my life. If I let myselfContinue reading “Grief Into Gratitude”

The Gravity and Glory of Existence

What is the meaning of Easter? Is it just about someone who died nearly two thousand years ago and came back to life? For almost half its history, Christianity celebrated Easter as its principal message to the world. As the Middle Ages dawned, however, the focus shifted to the Atonement where Jesus was supposed to have accomplishedContinue reading “The Gravity and Glory of Existence”

This Is Your Life!

Nature took a huge risk in giving our species self-control and free will. Of course, I need to qualify these terms right away, as our self-control and free will are really quite limited. But the degree in which we have these is behind most of what today we celebrate (and sometimes regret) as our distinctly human contributionContinue reading “This Is Your Life!”

Impossibly Human

I spend a lot of time reflecting on the nature of human beings and what we need to be fully human. In that quest is an acknowledgment that humans don’t always live up to their potential – that, in fact, we frequently underachieve or leave unrealized what is in our nature to become. Perhaps dueContinue reading “Impossibly Human”

Second Birth

The higher religions share many things in common, even as devotees strive so desperately to promote what makes theirs distinct and superior to the others. These common elements are emphasized and celebrated in the more mystically oriented currents, while the orthodox mainstreams either downplay them or interpret them tightly around their core doctrines. Mystics of allContinue reading “Second Birth”

Pushing on Belief

A human being creates a world like a spider spins a web. As an innate impulse of the mind, this need to construct meaning is irresistible, and the prospect of living without meaning – of living a meaningless existence – is widely regarded as a fate worse than death. We are ready to give upContinue reading “Pushing on Belief”

The Rupture of Meaning and The Life to Come

Normal everyday operations of your computer at home or work takes into your system a slow accumulation of data in the form of user preferences, security patches and protections, new applications and saved files, internet tracking and downloads – all of which, unless periodically consolidated and cleaned up, will end up oppressing your computer’s memoryContinue reading “The Rupture of Meaning and The Life to Come”

Creative Authority

A friend in an engagement community that I weekly attend asked recently, “What, exactly, goes into this idea of ‘creative authority’?” – an idea (or ideal, really) that occupies a strategic position in the theory of human fulfillment that I’ve been working to clarify in a conversation on post-theism. It is critically important that post-theism not be definedContinue reading “Creative Authority”

Growing Into God

The developmental aim of a human being is to become a well-grounded, fully centered, and creative authority; a caring, autonomous, and responsible adult. According to this definition, an adult is more than just a “grown up,” someone who has reached a certain age and stage of physical maturity. As I’m using the term, adult refersContinue reading “Growing Into God”