By now, a returning reader is familiar with my “dancing” style with things I regard as essential to understanding the human journey. I prefer to keep words flexible and their contextual frames almost always moving, which makes it hard to pin me down and hold me to account. I don’t do this to evade responsibilityContinue reading “The Quest Mandala”
Category Archives: Post-theism/New Humanism
Deep Within and All Around
One of the more obscure concepts in mystical spirituality to explain, and arguably the most important for understanding what it’s all about, is the Ground of Being. The Christian theologian Paul Tillich popularized the term in the mid-twentieth century, but it has been foundational to the perennial tradition of spiritual wisdom for nearly 3,000 years.Continue reading “Deep Within and All Around”
A New Look at Family Values
Conservative politicians and preachers frequently say that the health of society is a symptom of marriage and family health. For them, marriage and family are the foundation of everything else. Class tension, racial strife, and tribal conflict are both the sign and fallout of dysfunction at that primary level. I’m not sure the politicians andContinue reading “A New Look at Family Values”
Clarity and Brilliance
The “clarity” of a diamond refers to the absence of defects, of imperfections that would otherwise obscure its transparency to light. At higher degrees of clarity a diamond will take on a “brilliance” where the magnification of light through its various facets has the effect of shining or generating a radiance from its own interiorContinue reading “Clarity and Brilliance”
Life in Balance
Do you know why anxiety and depression are so prevalent in our day? Why more and more drugs are being invented (or repurposed) for their treatment – with an efficacy hardly better than the placebo effect? Why, despite multi-billions of dollars spent each year on research and treatment, and on the side-effects of that treatment,Continue reading “Life in Balance”
Hero’s Journey
Let’s get “mythological” for a few minutes. You are the hero on a journey to find your true self. (Why you would have to go anywhere to find your true self is not something you pause to really think about.) On the way, you enter a bazaar where all kinds of costumes are available forContinue reading “Hero’s Journey”
Fetal Personhood?
In State legislatures, courtrooms, college dorms and dive bars across the country people are debating whether a human fetus should be considered a person, and therefore respected as possessing an unalienable right to life. Proponents of the idea want to push this identity of a person as far back in time as possible, through embryonicContinue reading “Fetal Personhood?”
Becoming All That We Are
One of the most fascinating examples of creative change in nature is the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Genetically the two organisms at either end are identical, and yet they are so different from each other in every other way, that unless you watched the whole event with unblinking eyes, you’d never believeContinue reading “Becoming All That We Are”
Five Aspirations
Damn, if it doesn’t keep happening. We set our sights and give chase to something we expect will satisfy our longing – for what exactly, we’re not sure, but this might be it. After it’s over, and even if we managed to grab on and gulp down the promising thing, we feel more unsatisfied andContinue reading “Five Aspirations”
Waiting in Line
The human journey through life has only recently been a topic of psychological study. For thousands of years before that, its exploration was mythological, carried out not by objective research but subjective experience. Our modern tools of psychology have made possible a rational precision that was not available all those centuries and millenniums, but evenContinue reading “Waiting in Line”
Tracts of Revolution 