Timely and Random – Page 13 – Tracts of Revolution

One Day

Life in Perfect Freedom

Recently in my blog bibletracts (bibletracts.wordpress.com) I’ve been exploring the meaning of resurrection. The timing is right for two reasons. First, the liturgical year of the Church is now approaching the season of Easter, the Christian holy day set aside to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Secondly, because resurrection is fundamentally misunderstood when its meaning isContinue reading “Life in Perfect Freedom”

Check-point: The Future of Religion

Today, as the living stream of spiritual life grows increasingly frustrated behind the rigid walls of conventional religion, more and more people are looking for a way through. While a large number keep this struggle to themselves, willing to accept the problem of relevancy as a fault of their own, others are beginning to speak out.Continue reading “Check-point: The Future of Religion”

Radiant Being

Look around and rest your gaze on something nearby. What do you see? A coffee cup. A potted plant. An old paint-peeled wooden fence outside the window. What if I told you that you are mistaken? The things you just named are only concepts – meanings that your mind is putting around what you see.Continue reading “Radiant Being”

Metaphors of Life

Metaphors operate at a level where experience first breaks over the threshold into expression, the real presence of mystery into representations of meaning. At a very deep level – just short of the very deepest – human beings orient themselves according to a guiding metaphor of life itself. What is life, and what is yourContinue reading “Metaphors of Life”

A Grateful Life

As my mother receives guests into her home and says goodbye to old friends, some deep questions poke to the surface of my conscious thought. What is this life that I so easily take for granted, this stretch of 80 years (if I’m lucky) from cradle to grave? Just now the morning sun glows inContinue reading “A Grateful Life”

This Hour of Passing

We just received word this past weekend that my mother is dying. Pancreatic stage 4 cancer has metastasized and migrated throughout her body and into her brain. A healthy 79-year-old now likely has just weeks to live. My mother is a woman of deep faith, and although I may not articulate mine the same asContinue reading “This Hour of Passing”

On the Other Side of Meaning

I know someone whose religion is a collection of curiosities from across the landscape of world traditions. A little of this and a little of that, thrown together in no systematic or reasonable way, but still very personal and meaningful as far as it goes. If you were to ask this individual what it all reallyContinue reading “On the Other Side of Meaning”

The Story of Truth

At this holiday season we have another chance to take a deeper look into story. What is it exactly, this peculiar arrangement of words that conjures up images in our minds, sweeps us away into other times and places, to places that never were nor likely will ever be? Take the story of The Nativity,Continue reading “The Story of Truth”

Excavating Christmas

Let’s get out our shovels. We are searching for the true meaning of Christmas – this season that rushes upon us and is as quickly gone again. Our quest will proceed on the analogy of an archeological dig. Before even breaking the surface, one layer in the meaning of Christmas is commercial. Earlier each year,Continue reading “Excavating Christmas”