narrative construction – Tracts of Revolution

What’s Really Going On

Each of us is rather caught up and fixated on our own personal life – making it through today, cleaning up from yesterday, and getting ready for tomorrow. There’s barely enough mental bandwidth to pay attention to all the details and passing concerns. Catching up on global events is out of the question, and thinkingContinue reading “What’s Really Going On”

Whole Picture, Whole Brain

I’ll start with a proposition, and then work it out in more detail below: The meaning of life is an ongoing construction project involving two parallel processes, communion and knowledge. Communion refers to an experience of no-separation, where your existence is felt as not just connected to but as “one with” the rest of it.Continue reading “Whole Picture, Whole Brain”

In the Beginning

In the Genesis myth of chapter one, the breath (spirit) of God hovers over the primordial waters – the one element in creation that is co-eternal with God (so technically not a creation). God says, “Let there be …” and therewith issues forth light followed by the rest of the cosmic order: the dome ofContinue reading “In the Beginning”

Between Heaven and Hell

The essential function of mythology is to link together individual consciousness (psyche; psychology) and the larger order of existence (cosmos; cosmology). Its collection of sacred stories provides the orientation, guidance, connection, and support that we need for success in the project of constructing meaning and living well. Because this project is profoundly (i.e., deeply) social,Continue reading “Between Heaven and Hell”

Personal Myth and the Anatomy of Character

The diagram above illustrates my newly refined definition of religion, as a cultural system that links together (from the Latin religare) individual consciousness (or psychology, represented in the purple triangle) and the larger order of existence (or cosmology, represented in the dome overhead) by means of sacred stories (or mythology, represented in the moving waveContinue reading “Personal Myth and the Anatomy of Character”