Wouldn’t you love to have a map for this journey of your life? Some chart, some tool – something that could help you get oriented in Reality and moving in the right direction? We’re not talking about a step-by-step itinerary prescribing every move, turn, and stop along the way. That would take the adventure outContinue reading “Next Steps”
Tag Archives: religion
A Reconciliation of Religion & Science
The overstory of cultural evolution features a complementarity of visions known as religion and science, which in the last 2,500 years or so have been competing for dominance, with religion on a dramatic decline in the West since the 1800s – but starting long before. Many will argue that this decline of religion in theContinue reading “A Reconciliation of Religion & Science”
The Four Human Force Fields
At some point along life’s way we feel an attraction, or perhaps metaphorically we hear a calling from beyond the boundary of what we know and who we are. Paradoxically, the source of this attraction or calling is not “out there” exactly, but “in here,” deeper within ourselves, a Beyond in the midst of ourContinue reading “The Four Human Force Fields”
Living Religion
After rescuing spirituality from dysfunctional religion, its proponents have sometimes gone way to the other extreme, turning spirituality into a catch-all for anything mystical, metaphysical, magical and spoon-bending. In their rejection of religious tradition, institution, and orthodoxy, they “rescued” something of a shapeless blob of experience, which has been branded in countless ways and soldContinue reading “Living Religion”
The Quest Mandala
By now, a returning reader is familiar with my “dancing” style with things I regard as essential to understanding the human journey. I prefer to keep words flexible and their contextual frames almost always moving, which makes it hard to pin me down and hold me to account. I don’t do this to evade responsibilityContinue reading “The Quest Mandala”
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”
The Power of Myth
I keep coming back to the ideas of “mythic themes” and the “four ages of life” in this blog. They are in the background of just about everything else I think and write about. My ancestral heritage for this stream of thought includes Mircea Eliade, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Northrop Frye – all pioneersContinue reading “The Power of Myth”
A New Look at Family Values
Conservative politicians and preachers frequently say that the health of society is a symptom of marriage and family health. For them, marriage and family are the foundation of everything else. Class tension, racial strife, and tribal conflict are both the sign and fallout of dysfunction at that primary level. I’m not sure the politicians andContinue reading “A New Look at Family Values”
Against Democracy
The mainline tradition of Christian orthodoxy represents the cumulative efforts over several centuries to translate the mythological milieu of early Christian experience into a dogmatic system of fixed beliefs. Quickly, and increasingly so over time, these beliefs came to operate as the framework of a Christian worldview, in addition to serving as standards and requirementsContinue reading “Against Democracy”
Waiting in Line
The human journey through life has only recently been a topic of psychological study. For thousands of years before that, its exploration was mythological, carried out not by objective research but subjective experience. Our modern tools of psychology have made possible a rational precision that was not available all those centuries and millenniums, but evenContinue reading “Waiting in Line”
Tracts of Revolution 