*Click*

Existential disorientation is an apt name for our diagnostic condition as a species, what’s called “the human condition.” We wake up and find ourselves here, but we don’t really know where we are. We feel lost, homeless, in exile, stranded on a remote island, alone in the middle of everything. There is some comfort inContinue reading “*Click*”

Keeping It Real

What is it for something to be real? Let’s go even bigger and ask, What is reality? Presumably something is real when it has reality, but what does that even mean? Are we just tripping over terms but getting no closer to genuine insight and understanding? Not surprisingly, we’re not the first to ask theseContinue reading “Keeping It Real”

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual formation is a process whereby the sentient life of the body rises into a center of self-conscious personal identity, or ego, which provides the individual with an elevated center of intention for taking in a larger perspective on life, connecting with others in meaningful ways, and contributing creatively to the wellbeing of community. InContinue reading “Spiritual Direction”

Meditation on the Snow Cone

In Religion and the Snow Cone Universe (October 2014) I offered this simple image as a way of understanding the relationships among science, spirituality, and religion. The ball of our snow cone, I suggested, can stand for the great cosmic environment arching overhead and surrounding us. This is the realm of scientific research, also calledContinue reading “Meditation on the Snow Cone”

Your Hero Path

The design intention of our sacred stories goes far beyond explaining the universe and our place in it. Even if for so long this intention was not self-conscious, in the sense that our first storytellers did not sit down with a plan to map reality and chart the human journey through life, the product ofContinue reading “Your Hero Path”

Alone in the Middle of Everything

Because the adventure of becoming somebody requires its own separate workspace, the entire project along with its product, a unique identity named “I” or ego, has prompted two very different judgments on the matter. Conventional religion typically regards the separate ego – conceived as estranged from its proper and original communion with god – asContinue reading “Alone in the Middle of Everything”

Your Triune Nature

Given that truth in mythology is not a matter of factual or historical accuracy but rather the degree in which its stories express and reveal to us the reality of what we are, I’ve been reflecting lately on a persistent fascination of Christian mythology: the triune nature of God. (I’m using the uppercase ‘G’ hereContinue reading “Your Triune Nature”

Adventures On The Way

I make the case frequently in this blog, that our development as individuals and evolution as a species has the aim of preparing us for the liberated life in community. The liberated life is not really “about” the individual set free from all constraints that might hinder his or her personal fulfillment, but rather thatContinue reading “Adventures On The Way”

Human Progress

In The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell says that “Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us.” He read the world’s mythologies as “magnified dreams” (ibid) projecting through metaphor and fiction the inner potentialities and evolutionary adventure of the human spirit. Even if the Hero of this journey typically returnsContinue reading “Human Progress”

A Sacred Place

Take a moment to reflect on the long journey that’s brought you here. So many twists and turns, so many ups and downs. It’s not been easy, and yet somehow you’ve managed to arrive right where you are. Your peculiar quirks and hangups, along with many endearing qualities and positive strengths, testify to an undeniableContinue reading “A Sacred Place”