PODCAST: Learning How to See with Brian McLaren — Episode: “Find the Flow” (feat. Jacque Lewis)
What would it mean for us if we happened to live during the decline of the old humanity when a new humanity is in the painful, fragile process of being born? What if some of us are in the process of trying to resuscitate the old, while others of us are conceiving, gestating and giving birth to the new? What if the growth of the new movement, the new humanity, the new social creation or construction depends on the old one losing its hegemony? As I write those words, I can’t help but feel a flood of resonances with the Hebrew scriptures. I feel echoes of Isaiah speaking of God doing a new thing. Something fresh springing forth so that there will be good news for the poor, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom for the incarcerated and oppressed. Oppression of the poor is one of the hallmarks of the old humanity.
“What is Life? — Philosophical Conversations” - with Ilia Delio
Ilia and Tim discuss the pioneering work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, life and death, the power of love and being ‘pilgrims from the future’.
VISIT TIM’S PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-freke-show/id1216387576
VISIT ILIA DELIO’S WEBSITE: https://christogenesis.org
Transfiguration – Then and Now by Fr. Sean O'Laoire
A. The Real Meaning of Thabor
The purpose of the gospels in writing of the transfiguration was to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Jewish Scriptures. Traditionally, these scriptures were divided into three sections – the acronym ‘TaNaKh’ was used to represent them. “T” stood for Torah, the first five books of the bible, ascribed to Moses and known as “The Law.” “N” stood for Nebiim or “the prophetic books.” And “K” stood for Ketuviim or “writings” (the wisdom literature – psalms, Job, Ruth etc.) The Pharisees accepted all three parts as inspired, but the priestly caste, the Sadducees, only accepted Torah and Nebiim. Moses was the archetype of Torah; and Elijah stood for the prophets. So, the evangelists wanted to show that Jesus’ encounter with Moses and Elijah was the fulfillment of both streams of revelation. Moreover, God had traditionally appeared on mountain tops – Sinai in the case of Moses and Horeb in the case of Elijah (some scholars claim Sinai and Horeb were the same mountain), so the evangelists situate this event on Mount Thabor. In the transfiguration scene also, God appears and singles out Jesus as “my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” So, whatever else is true, this was a literary device to make a strong case for the new covenant – the Jesus movement.
“What If You Could Interview God?” by Alan Watts
If you were told that you were going to be given half an hour's interview with God and you had the privilege of asking one question, I wonder what you would ask? You might be given some preparation too. Because when you think what is your ultimate question? You'll probably do many things before you arrive at it. And I know many people would discover that they had no question to ask. The situation would be altogether too overwhelming. But many people to whom I’ve put this problem say that the question that they would ask is “who am I?” That is something we know very little about — because whatever it is that we call “I”, is too close for inspection. It's like trying to bite your own teeth or to touch the tip of your finger with the tip of the same finger. Although other people can tell you what or who you are and do. They only see you from the outside, as you see them from the outside. You don't see from the inside. And so the nature of what it is that we call I is extremely puzzling because there is some confusion as to how much of us is “I”.
“The Mystical Core of Organized Religion” by BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST, OSB
Mysticism has been democratized in our day. Not so long ago, “real” mystics were those who had visions, levitations, and bilocations — and, most important, were those who had lived in the past; any contemporary mystic was surely a fake (if not a witch). Today, we realize that extraordinary mystical phenomena have little to do with the essence of mysticism. (Of course, genuine mystics had told us this all along; we just wouldn’t listen.) We’ve come to understand mysticism as the experience of communion with Ultimate Reality (i.e., with “God,” if you feel comfortable with this time-honored, but also time-distorted, term).
“Prayer and Identity” by Beatrice Bruteau
The way into the spiritual life is a matter of radical transformation. The further we progress along it, the more radical we realize the transformation has to be. The whole work of prayer is to cause, to control, and to appreciate certain transformations. Fundamental to these, so far as I see at present, is the sense of identity. The work of prayer is to transform our sense of identity. The Letter of James in the New Testament contains this passage:
If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being not a hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing. (James 1:23-25)
We can apply these words to our work in prayer. The prayer state, when developed, should be, first a mirror, and then a real environment, of our natural face. It is a matter of looking, with perseverance, into the perfect law of liberty—what I will later call creative freedom — until there is no more question of our looking away and forgetting our true identity. Insofar as we are not prayerful, we are at present in a state of forgetfulness; we do not know who we are.
SOURCE: http://webhome.auburn.edu/~silvesb/smicha/Bruteau.pdf
“The Suppression of Yin, Patriarchy and the Person of Jesus” by Keith Basar
Throughout history, overemphasized attributes of Yang, at the expense of the balancing properties of Yin, have produced a highly toxic setting for a vast majority of humans. Patriarchy is a powerful example of such. A subdued Yin produces an overly aggressive, exploitative, domineering male-centic world.
“Exquisite Risk: John of the Cross and the Transformational Power of Captivity” by Mirabai Starr
On a dark night
Inflamed by love-longing--
O, exquisite risk!--
Undetected, I slipped away,
My house, at last, grown still.
Sometimes it is in our prisons that we find our freedom. In 1577, when St. John of the Cross was thirty-five years old, he was abducted by his own monastic brothers and incarcerated for nine months in a monastery in Toledo, Spain. It was there, as he languished, that the caterpillar of his old self dissolved and the butterfly of his authentic being grew its wings.
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“Exploring the Inner Journey of Kahlil Gibran” by Paul-Gordon Chandler
A hushed reflective silence filled the dark cinema as the world premiere of The Prophet finished its animated adaptation of Kahlil Gibran’s inspiring book of prose poetry. I had journeyed to the Toronto International Film Festival to experience the unveiling of Salma Hayek’s creative production firsthand and was not alone in feeling the power of Gibran’s words and images reaching across the decades, seemingly so apropos in our modern search for connection with “the other.” In speaking to Salma afterwards she explained her motivation in bringing Gibran’s work to life: “I thought it was crucial that we pay further tribute to this man who was an Arab who wrote a book of spiritual philosophy that unites all religions and all countries and all creeds, from many different generations . . .” In that brief comments, Salma captured the essence of Gibran’s inner journey: the deeper he went, the wider his embrace became.
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“Jesus: His Religion” – (Pt. 2) by Alan Watts
So, let’s suppose then that Jesus had such an experience. But, you see, Jesus has a limitation, that he doesn’t know of any religion other than those of the immediate Near East. He might know something about Egyptian religion, and perhaps a little bit about Greek religion, but mostly about Hebrew. There is no evidence whatsoever that he knew anything about India or China. And people who think that Jesus was God assume that he must have known because he would have been omniscient. No, Saint Paul makes it perfectly clear in the Epistle to the Philippians that Jesus renounced his divine powers so as to be Man.
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“Jesus: His Religion” – (Pt. 1) by Alan Watts
Some years ago, I had just given a talk on television in Canada when one of the announcers came up to me and said, “You know, if one can believe that this universe is in the charge of an intelligent and beneficent God, don’t you think He would naturally have provided us with an infallible guide to behavior and to the truth about the universe?” Of course I knew he meant the Bible. I said, “No, I think nothing of the kind, because I think a loving God would not do something to His children that would rot their brains.” Because if we had an infallible guide we would never think for ourselves, and therefore our minds would become atrophied. It is as if my grandfather had left me a million dollars, and I am glad he didn’t. And we have therefore to begin any discussion of the meaning of the life and teachings of Jesus with a look at this thorny question of authority, and especially the authority of Holy Scripture.
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“Embracing Mystery” by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussa
How to make acceptance of mystery a spiritual practice; the first step, let God be God.
Mystery. It's not much in favor these days. Modern consciousness has little respect for the unseen and the unknown. We're much more comfortable with sound bytes from the experts and tidy philosophical or psychological systems that have an explanation for every situation. Television programs us to think that every problem has a solution that can be found in an hour or two, minus the time for commercials.
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"In Order to Discover God "(excerpt) DEMOCRACY IN THE KINGDOM by Alan Watts
In order to discover God you have to stop clinging entirely. Why does one cling to God? For safety, of course. You want to save something; you want to save yourself. I don’t care what you mean by saved, whether it means just feeling happy, or that life is meaningful, or that there is somebody up there who cares. If you do not cling to one god, you cling to another: the state, money, sex, yourself, power. These are all false gods. But there has to come a time when clinging stops; only then does the time of faith begin. People who hold on to God do not have any faith at all, because real faith lies in not holding on to anything.
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7 Reasons Why Evangelicals Should Read Thomas Merton by Michael Wright
I first learned about Thomas Merton when I skipped chapel at my Christian high school. I started to meet weekly with a kindhearted Bible teacher who looked through my cynicism and saw a desire for a deeper spiritual life. I’m grateful for those conversations—especially the day he told me about a book written by Merton called No Man Is An Island. As I started reading it, I was excited to find a monastic writer with piercing insights into my own inner life and a Christian mystical tradition markedly different from the subculture around me. It was providential timing: I was slipping into depression that would last for years, and Merton quickly became a friend and guide through a spiritual wilderness. So today, in honor of his birthday and his lasting impact on the wayfarers and mystics among us, here are seven reasons why evangelicals should read Thomas Merton: