The process of becoming somebody – someone with a separate center of personal identity – is a long and complicated affair involving many others who are also undergoing their own individuation. We are busy trying to figure out the game as the game is shaping who we are. Actually, the process of becoming somebody hasContinue reading “Homecoming”
Category Archives: Post-theism/New Humanism
Safe Inside Our Truth
With what’s going on geopolitically around us these days, and of course right here in our own backyard, I am reminded once again just how dangerous convictions can be. If I’m short on tolerance, it’s shortest when I bump up against someone’s absolute, inflexible, and righteous conviction that their way is the “one and onlyContinue reading “Safe Inside Our Truth”
Math and the Meaning of Life
Have you ever met someone who believes they are god’s gift to the world and deserve special attention? How about someone who believes they are worst of the worst and also deserve special attention? Both individuals have essentially the same thing going on: they can’t stop thinking about themselves or get the attention they feelContinue reading “Math and the Meaning of Life”
Where is God?
As an advocate of post-theism I stand in an interesting space, with suspicious theists on one side and suspicious atheists on the other. As they debate the literal existence of god, I want to know what god means – not what did god mean by this commandment or that Bible story, but what the mentalContinue reading “Where is God?”
Ignoring Jesus by Making Him God
In orthodox Christianity Jesus is regarded as the Divine Son and Second Person of the Trinity; nothing less than God. Theologians – referring to those who presume to speak authoritatively about God (logos, the study of or talk about theos, god) – have ensconced him fully inside their doctrinal systems. Over the centuries believers haveContinue reading “Ignoring Jesus by Making Him God”
Idols of Orthodoxy, Part 2
You probably saw this coming. In Idols of Orthodoxy I took my reader into the phenomenology of symbols; not an interpretation of this or that symbol – although we used as our example the American flag – but of how symbols themselves are experienced. With that groundwork in place, now we can address a symbolContinue reading “Idols of Orthodoxy, Part 2”
A Closer Look at Growing Up
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall notContinue reading “A Closer Look at Growing Up”
Idols of Orthodoxy
Religion is notorious for confusing its representations of God – our conventional nickname for ultimate reality – with the present mystery which, as they say in the Orient, is beyond names and forms. These representations, falling inside the general category of symbols, typically have their origin in experiences that can’t be definitively rendered in language.Continue reading “Idols of Orthodoxy”
The Heart of Genuine Community
Our most pressing challenge right now is not global warming, school security, or building a wall against Mexico. Somewhere in the DNA of all those troubles is an aberrant code which is undermining our success in working together for solutions that really matter. Simply put, we can’t work creatively together if we can’t get along;Continue reading “The Heart of Genuine Community”
The Shining Way to the Kindom of Spirit
Of all my reflections on the topics of spirituality, psychology, and community, this post represents my best effort so far. If I write nothing more from this point, I think I’ve made a meaningful contribution. But I’ll keep at it anyway. A few of the “big ideas” that repeatedly make an appearance include the groundingContinue reading “The Shining Way to the Kindom of Spirit”
Tracts of Revolution 