A mentor and friend of mine passed away recently. He was 79 years old and a one-time member of a church I served back in my ministry days. He and his wife were good friends with another couple who were founding members of that same congregation. The supernatural orientation of religion, its tendency for gettingContinue reading “A (More) Meaningful Life”
Tag Archives: present mystery of reality
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”
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”
Two Things About the World You Need to Know
In The Story That Got You Here I reviewed the developmental journey that started with your physical attachment to Mother, gave way to emotional attachment to your mother and other family members, and continued to advance with your intellectual attachment, in the form of beliefs, to the worldview of your tribe and larger culture. ThisContinue reading “Two Things About the World You Need to Know”
Becoming Aware
To call something an “illusion” commonly assumes that it was somehow designed to deceive or mislead us into believing what isn’t true. To believe an illusion is to live in delusion, and no one wants that. What we want is the pure and simple meaning of things, without any spin or labels or partisan agendas.Continue reading “Becoming Aware”
Secure in Delusion
One of the charming yet potentially devastating traits of our species is in the way we lose touch with what’s real, even preferring illusions to what’s right in front of our face. And yet, the condition of fully believing our illusions – called delusion – creeps over us so gradually that we actually have noContinue reading “Secure in Delusion”
The View from Where You Are
The power of language as a tool for constructing meaning and making sense of things is painfully evident when we lack the words to build narratives and fashion lenses for taking our perspective on reality. One of the consequences of religion’s fall from relevance is that its historically deep toolbox of symbols and terms hasContinue reading “The View from Where You Are”
Now and Again
Sequestering at home, I was sitting with my wife under the gazebo in our backyard just the other morning as the sun was coming through the trees. The sweet smell of burning piñon wood from our chiminea and birdsong in the tree overhead made for an enchanted experience. There were other things we could beContinue reading “Now and Again”
God and COVID-19
Times like these tend to bring out the best and the worst in religion. On the “worse” side are declarations to the effect that the challenge we face is an instrument of god’s will. It has been sent for the divine purpose of punishing sinners, testing the righteous, or maybe just as a demonstration ofContinue reading “God and COVID-19”
A Psychology of Wholeness
I’m sure that no other species of life, on Earth at least, is as obsessed with understanding itself as are we. We’ve been trying to figure out this human experience for millenniums now, but time and again we get tangled up in our own reflection. Realistically speaking, there really is no hope of ever reachingContinue reading “A Psychology of Wholeness”
Tracts of Revolution 