Waking Up

De Mello: “Spirituality is the most practical thing in the whole wide world. I challenge anyone to think of anything more practical than spirituality as I have defined it – not piety, not devotion, not religion, not worship, but spirituality – waking up, waking up!” Human beings are creators, and what we create are worlds.Continue reading “Waking Up”

The Nature of Reality

If you were the only sentient being in this universe, you probably would never become aware of the discrepancy between your worldview and reality-as-it-is. Of course there would be perceptual mistakes, as when the cool oasis in the distance turns out to be only a mirage. But these would amount to minor illusions. Over timeContinue reading “The Nature of Reality”

Faith in the Wake of Tragedy

Excursus: The senseless slaying of innocent children and faculty at a Connecticut elementary school challenges our faith in a god who cares for us. Over the course of my conversations with Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard and Tillich, our working definition of faith has shifted away from nouns and deeper into verbs. Faith is something much more fundamentalContinue reading “Faith in the Wake of Tragedy”

Ultimate Concern

Tillich: “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. The content matters infinitely for the life of the believer, but it does not matter for the formal definition of faith. And this is the first step we have to make in order to understand the dynamics of faith.” If Paul Tillich has recognition in popularContinue reading “Ultimate Concern”