“Healing My Religion” from healingmyreligion.com
“Dimension of the divine”.
“And the goal… is not to pray to God or have God tell you what to do, but to realize that you have been, all along, contrary to all of your illusions, a dimension of the divine. And in moments of heightened spiritual awareness, the boundary line… momentarily is erased, momentarily is blurred, and it’s no longer clear where you end and God begins.”
– Lawrence Kushner, scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, from his conversation with Krista Tippett on On Being
I AM
Fact: when Jesus spoke to the crowds of people that gathered to listen to him, he the spoke in an ancient Semetic language called Aramaic. Another fact: the English language version of Jesus’ teachings that we have access to today were not translated from Aramaic, but instead translated from Greek after first being filtered through Greek philosophy and greek language.
Consequently, much of the modern English canonical gospels are a representation – and sometimes a downright manipulation – of the teachings of Jesus that best supported the Greek culture and worldview at the time.
“Infallibility and Its Errors, Part 3: The Infallibility of the Bible” by Seán ÓLaoire
The infallibility of the Bible
And the fourth shock to my hopes for some bastion of infallibility came as I studied the Bible. It, too, for all its wisdom and insights, has been filtered, edited, redacted and massaged by hundreds of generations of priests, translators and, yes, even emperors.
I have learned lots from newspapers, from theology, from science and from the Bible, but I am duty bound to separate truth from tactic, and fact from fiction; to recognize metaphor and allegory and distinguish those from historical data.
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“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”.
Interspiritual pioneer Beatrice Bruteau loomed large in the contemplative universe by Cynthia Bourgeault
Beatrice Bruteau, a scholar, teacher, interspiritual pioneer, and intrepid explorer of the evolutionary edge of consciousness, died Nov. 16 at the age of 84. Her passing exemplified her signature brand of clarity, freedom and intentionality, traits that for more than five decades have been the hallmarks of her teaching presence among us and that she now bequeaths to us as both a legacy and a continuing invitation.
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Neil Douglas-Klotz - Aramaic Jesus, Native Middle Eastern Spirituality, Christian Mysticism - (Buddha at the Gas Pump w/ Rick Archer)
A superb interview looking at Jesus and his words through an Aramaic lens. Neil Douglas-Klotz brings new insights and resonance to the teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) in an otherwise too often Biblical interpretive malaise.
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“What Is ‘The False Self’”? (excerpt) THE IMMORTAL DIAMOND by Fr. Richard Rohr
I begin this chapter with a positive quote, so I can describe the False Self properly and avoid the usual connotations of false. Your False Self is not your bad self, your clever or inherently deceitful self, the self that God does not like or you should not like. Actually your False Self is quite good and necessary as far as it goes. It just does not go far enough, and it often poses and thus substitutes for the real thing.
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“Consolation for My Cancer” by Claire Gilbert (+) Nomad Podcast Interview w/ Ms. Gilbert
In March 2019 I was diagnosed with Myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow. I have been in treatment ever since, in an attempt to send the cancer into deep remission.
You have to submit to the treatment. Thank heavens I am, at Guy’s Hospital, among world class haematologists and oncologists and clinical nurse specialists who are easy to trust. That helps. But I don’t really understand the science and it is utterly counter intuitive to allow a substance to be infused into your body that makes you feel dreadful when you had felt - because the cancer was found early - perfectly well.
SOURCES:
“Beauty and Spirituality” by Christine Valters Painter
I was initiated into the church of beauty as a young child. Though neither of my parents was religious, we would travel in the summers to my father's native Austria so that we could hike the Tyrolean mountains. There we would stand in wonder and awe, surrounded as we were by massive, snow-capped peaks stretching toward the heavens. In the cities of Europe, too, we would walk with quiet reverence through the sacred space of museums and great cathedrals. The beauty of art and nature called to me.
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The Essence of Our Being by Karin Baard
What is it we have forgotten about ourselves and one another? In the Celtic tradition, the Garden of Eden is not a place in space and time from which we are separated. It is the deepest dimension of our being from which we live in a type of exile. It is our place of origin or genesis in God. Eden is home, but we live far removed from it. And yet in the Genesis account, the Garden is not destroyed. Rather Adam and Eve become fugitives from the place of their deepest identity. It is a picture of humanity living in exile.
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“Michael Meade on Cultivating Mythic Imagination /124” Interview by ‘FOR THE WILD’
The crises of cosmological, mythological and psychological disconnection from nature and from each other may drive us to places of darkness and suffering; and yet there is great potential in that darkness to interact with creative energy. Retracing meaning through archetypal myth offers an opportunity to understand the great challenge of our time to heal the planet from its wounds, and to refresh our dominant worldview with one based on connection. This week, journey into Michael Meade’s expansive vision of awakening ancient meaning for the individual and collective consciousness.
“The Relevance of Visionary Experience to Culture” by Anne Baring
I know that all of us here today are deeply committed to finding ways of alleviating human suffering. This paper suggests that our culture is incomplete and impoverished if it fails to take account of visionary experience in the ancient and original interpretation of its meaning - that of receiving revelation, inspiration and guidance from a transcendent dimension of consciousness that used to be called spirit…
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“Jesus Revels the Lie of Scapegoating” by Richard Rohr
If your ego is still in charge, you will find a disposable person or group on which to project your problems. People who haven’t come to at least a minimal awareness of their own dark side will always find someone else to hate or fear. Hatred holds a group together much more quickly and easily than love and inclusivity, I am sorry to say. René Girard developed a sociological, literary, and philosophical explanation for how and why the pattern of scapegoating is so prevalent in every culture. [1]
“Heroic Consciousness: What it is and How to Acquire it” by Scott T. Allison
The philosopher Yuval Noah Harari (2018) recently described consciousness as “the greatest mystery in the universe”.
What exactly is heroic consciousness? It is a way of seeing the world, perceiving reality, and making decisions that lead to heroic behavior. Human beings display heroic consciousness by employing the nondualistic strategy of unifying disparate experiences into integrated wholes, by engaging in an enlightened processing of transrational phenomena, and by acquiring the wisdom to know when, how, and whether to act heroically.
“Jesus and the Cross” by Richard Rohr
The theory of substitutionary atonement has inoculated us against the true effects of the Gospel, causing us to largely “thank” Jesus instead of honestly imitating him. At its worst, it has led us to see God as a cold, brutal figure who demands acts of violence before God can love creation. There is no doubt that the Bible—both Old and New Testaments—is filled with metaphors of sacrifice, ransom, atonement, paying the price, opening the gates, et cetera. These are common temple metaphors that would have made sense to Jewish audiences at the time they were written. But they all imply that God is not inherently on our side.
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"The Religious Dilemma: Fundamentalism or Mysticism (the Road Less Traveled)?" by Father Seán ÓLaoire
I’ve never found a satisfactory definition of religion, though I’m certain of its origin, which I take to be the Impulse of Spirit. However, humans have a penchant for screwing up all great ideas. The least deadly screw up, perhaps, is to allow the impulse to stagnate theologically; and the deadliest is to weaponize it.
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“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 Unknown” by Jeannie Zandi
When we slip out of the known, into a little gap, we oftentimes feel great discomfort. Let’s say in the middle of daydreaming in class, the teacher calls on you and you have no idea what they are talking about. There’s a gap of “I don’t know,” and a kind of terror that can rise. I should have something to show for myself! What if I’m speaking in front of a group and I don’t know what to say? Oh no! Toddlers seem to survive this all the time as they gaze at each other, taking up space for long periods of time, just there, without content. Despite the fact that there is generally no imminent threat to survival, we are terrified of this gap of “I don’t know,” this moment when we might feel that we don’t have our ducks in a row, when we don’t know what’s going on.
“Jesus and Buddha: Two Messengers of Light” from the Red Wing UU Community
Two sons of Wisdom, two sages and prophets
Two World teachers with hundreds of millions of followers.
Two moral and spiritual revolutionaries who changed everything in their times and much in ours.
Their ministries even altered how their cultures measure time: Christian calendars start with the death & resurrection of Jesus Buddhist calendars begin with the death & paranirvana of Buddha.
I will be offering side by side comparison of the teachings of Jesus and Buddha on 3 key points:
"Spaceships & Invitations" — (excerpt) Marianne Williamson
Sometimes, love arrives as though it were a spaceship landing in the back yard. The captain comes out of the ship and says to us, "Hi, I'm here to beam you up! Come on! We're going!"
Yet so many times we reject him, saying, "Uh, well, I can't just leave here so fast. Actually, I can't even believe you're here. How long do I have to prepare my things?"
And he says, "You have no time at all. Your entire life been spent preparing. Now, we must go quickly. If you wait, your eyes will adjust and you will no longer see me. I've just landed for a bit, to pick you up. You have an hour, max. You can make further plans from the ship."