David Plotz, Blogging the Bible This sound interesting; thinking about the bible out loud as you read it. While I probably have an above average bible literacy, I want to read the whole thing some day. Over the years, I would think I have read the entire new testament through study of the individual books.

From The Barna Update, January 10, 2006

Perhaps the most telling information relates to the measures that are not widely used by pastors to assess people’s spiritual health. Less than one out of every ten pastors mentioned indicators such as the maturity of a person’s faith in God, the intensity of the commitment to loving and serving God and people, the nature of each congregant’s personal ministry, the breadth of congregational involvement in community service, the extent to which believers have some forms of accountability for their spiritual development and lifestyle, the manner in which believers use their resources to advance the kingdom of God, how often people worship God during the week or feel as if they have experienced the presence of God, or how faith is integrated into the family experience of those who are connected with the church. Surveys Show Pastors Claim Congregants Are Deeply Committed to God But Congregants Deny It!

I found this interesting since most the folks at our church don't have much depth to their biblical or theological knowledge. We had a good catechism program at our Lutheran Church and as a young teen, I took it quite seriously. With that and other study, I seem to be more familiar with the bible than most. Always a little ironic when folks claim to be biblical Christians but have a shallow understanding of what is there.

Heretics

The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, an evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the Reverend, he was denounced by almost all his former supporters, and today his congregation is just a few hundred people. He didn't have an affair. He didn't embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse ... he stopped believing in hell. This American Life

I wonder what would happen if I, church president and study leader, let it be known that I stopped believing in hell.

In his new book, Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine, Richard Sloan examines the claim that prayer and religion can heal the sick. Using the scientific method, he shows that there is no compelling evidence that religion can actually cure medical ailments. Fresh Air, November 14, 2006

William James was an intellectual force of nature in 19th century America. Trained as a medical doctor, he saw links between the life sciences, psychology and philosophy, and was a seminal thinker on religion. Author Robert D. Richardson has written a new biography called William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism. · All Things Considered, November 12, 2006

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founder of the acclaimed Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts and author of the meditation classic Wherever You Go, There You Are. His talk will present the latest findings in the merging discipline of mind-body medicine.

In this era of massive cultural attention deficit disorder, the increasing acceleration of our pace of life, a work ethic of non-stop doing, and our collective post-traumatic stress since 9-11, we have less and less occasion or inclination to come to know ourselves. However, we suffer greatly as individuals and as a society for the poignant distance between us and our deepest, truest nature. The price of that estrangement is chronic dis-ease, unhappiness, depression and anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and confused, and a politics dominated by fear, greed, and ignoring what is most fundamental. When, if ever, are we going to come to our senses, individually and as a society?

From the Buddhist perspective, there are six senses, not five. The sixth is mind. It is useful to see the mind as a sense organ and recognize the full spectrum of its functioning, from thinking, feeling and sensing to non-conceptual knowing. The mind informs all the other senses and brings them to life, and the other senses bring the mind to life as well. In this reciprocal enlivening lies an opportunity to know ourselves deeply as individuals and as a species, and to live and act in the world in ways that contribute to its awakening from the madness of our small mindedness and from the myopia and violence that invariably stem from it.

I attended this talk in February 2005. I had already been enjoying his book, "Where ever you go, there you are" and still enjoy reading passages out of it.

"Keep a daily log of five things you're grateful for. Those who did so for just three weeks reported greater energy and well-being and fewer health complaints, according to a study conducted at the University of California, Davis."

I saw this quote in March 2005 and saved it as an email to myself. Recently a health website had an article by Robert Emmons, a Professor at University of California, Davis who is doing research into happiness. So over time connections are made and common themes emerge in my blog ramblings.

It may have been a couple of decades ago, I enjoyed Gratefullness, the heart of prayer.

Gurmukh stands still for a moment to emphasize a point: "More than discovering yoga, I want my students to discover what Yogi Bhajan taught me: that we are spiritual beings here to have a human experience." She smiles again, and says in a mothering tone, "Our birthright is happiness."
L.A. (Yoga) Story
Yoga teacher to the stars Gurmukh Khalsa steps out of the limelight.
By Samantha Dunn in Yoga Journal

One of the main functions of religion is the binding function, the pulling together of communities into tight, uniformly believing groups. That gives survival value, over those who do not bind closely or those who prefer to be solitary. The best way to do it is to have some common mythology, a common set of rites and rituals, which are regarded as being ordained by the gods.

says Biologist and Writer Edward O. Wilson in an interview from the series in Grist God & the Environment. I mentioned him in a recent blog entry after hearing a bit of another interview on the radio. In Grist, he also says

We need to seek to live harmoniously together. Through time, religion will evolve. If you look back through the history of various Christian and Judeo denominations, you find that although there's always a group of hard-liners, there's a trend toward relaxing the posture of superiority, the bonds of dogmatic belief.

I would probably enjoy his book since I relate to the way he talks about religion and faith.

Cope is keenly interested in examining the way our concepts of enlightenment tend to stir up craving and clinging. "I don't find it helpful to crave some exalted, altered state," he says, "but prefer to practice every day in ways that create moments of freedom. To keep it really simple."

Cope measures his progress on the path by how well his practice attenuates greed, hatred, and delusion--the three defilements in Buddhism that are reflected in the five kleshas of the yoga tradition: ignorance, egotism, attraction, aversion, and clinging to life. "You can always ask yourself, "Is this softening my clinging, craving, and holding on? Is it softening hatred and delusion? If it's not, you've probably gone off track somewhere." from The Search for Enlightenment By Colleen Morton Busch in Yoga Journal

I seem to be examining Christianity in a new way; using teachings from another faith traditions to bring out the best that Christianity has to offer. An example is the non-clinging that Jesus taught getting lost in the eagerness to make disciples. Christians are not encouraged enough to ask, "Is this softening my clinging, craving, and holding on? Is it softening hatred and delusion? What a difference it might make to realize when we have "probably gone off track somewhere."

In the yogic view, we all hold within our bodies emotions and misguided thoughts that keep us from reaching samadhi, defined by some as "conscious enlightenment." Any sense of unease or dis-ease in the body keeps us from reaching and experiencing this state. Asanas are one path to blissful contentment, working to bring us closer by focusing our minds and releasing any emotional or inner tension in our bodies. Emotions in Motion, By Donna Raskin in Yoga Journal

This article made me think about keeping this spiritual journal. The desire or at least finally getting around to it may have come from my yoga practice. I looked to see if I ever explained what I was doing here. As I look back, I noticed that I just started reflecting; often on items from the archives of Yoga Journal.

There is also a lot of NPR; I have to admit to being a junkie. My commute is less than a half an hour and I usually listen to the news on NPR. Recently I have sometimes felt that I need the silence and have to overcome my news junkie desires. I hear Obi-Wan Kenobi saying, "Trust the force, Luke" and I obey by reaching for the radio and turning it off.

I liked the idea of an electronic journal as errors and vague musings can be corrected and improved. It can also be searched and previous entries can be referenced in the current entry with a hyperlink.

I decided to change the name of my blog today. I liked Peripatetic, One who walks about; a pedestrian; an itinerant but there already is a blog on blogspot with that name and URL. I will see how I like the new title. My current URL is only a problem if one drops the e on aire.

"The rapture is a recent American concept" was what I caught from hearing a bit of a Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview with Jonathan Kirsch on this new book, A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization.

I want to listen to the whole interview because it reminds me of when I was a part of the Jesus Movement in the late 60's/early 70's. I began to be bothered that so many of the central teachings had a very tenuous relationship to anything biblical. The leaders held up the bible and quoted from it but the teachings that followed were not coming from those verses. They presented themselves as bible-based and so in the tradition of the early followers of Jesus. I knew many of the practices came out of the American religious movements of the early 19th century but I didn't realize how much of the teaching had been invented then also.

In this entry on Chuck Smith and his son of Calvery Chapel, it says that he "deemphasized theological sophistication ... But he remained an old-school biblical literalist." I feel so distant from the beliefs of these "biblical literalists."

"Age can make you either stupid or wise. Stupid means you still hold on to lots of resentments; you wish you weren't growing old. Yoga can lift that and bring wisdom and peace," says Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, 60, the cofounder and director of Golden Bridge, one of Los Angeles's premier centers for Kundalini Yoga. Yoga Journal DailyinSight

This morning before I read today's DailyinSight, I was thinking about how I feel less afraid of death and attribute that to my yoga practice. My Dad had a heart attack at 35 years old. I am 54 years old, about how old he was when he had a cardiac arrest and died. A few years ago, I was having some fearful thoughts about what it would be like to have a heart attack and be in the hospital. Now I am feeling calmer and not having those kinds of fears.

While the suffering of illness would be tough, I do not feel like I have a fear of dying. I know it would be difficult for my family and friends but I am confident that one should not fear what lies beyond. There is no heaven or hell. As they say, it is just the universe rearranging itself. If I have a consciousness, it will be nothing like being on earth so I am not even going to bother trying to guess or imagine. I am going to live my life now.

I know that I can have a definite influence on my life today by heeding the quote that began this entry. 'Age can make you either stupid or wise'

Biologist and Writer Edward O. Wilson talks about his new book The Creation. Wilson's appeal to preserve biodiversity is written in the form of letters to a Southern Baptist minister. Talk of the Nation, September 8, 2006

I caught a bit of this. What interested me was when he was asked about the ideal living situation or something to that effect. He mentioned that the Savanna was the place we developed. So a high spot with a view of nature and a body of water. They commented on how expensive Manhattan apartments fit this description.

My lifelong desire to live rurally feels partially explained by this comment. Now I think that desire to live rural means using a lot of gas with the need for driving long distances to visit friends or run errands. Also natural areas get divided into small farms in a way that is not good. For me, this desire seems to be able to be fulfilled by gazing at a park, botanical garden, or natural areas (occasional trips) without actually living in a rural area. That is better for me and I don't think I would like the hard sustained work needed to live in a rural area.

He said he grew up as a true believer in his father's Pentecostal world, a world that could tilt and slide him into hell at any moment, or end with the thunderclap of doom. His earliest memories involve an overpowering sense of sin. "You can never be good enough if you're Pentecostal or if you're fundamentalist," Smith Jr. said. "Jesus may even be upset if you didn't make your bed or brush your teeth."

This portion of the article quoted in the previous post reminded me of the recent visit to a modern praise congregation that I wanted to reflect on. I took a few notes because the sermon seemed to exemplify the worst about the modern praise churches. Besides not getting a chance to reflect, I also don't want to be "holier than thou" in criticizing someone's choice of church and style of ministry.

Father, Son and Holy Rift
For Pastor Chuck Smith, the big issues are undebatable. For Chuck Smith Jr., also a pastor, it's not so crystal clear. Something had to give.
By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, September 2, 2006

I found this story quite interesting. I don't think I attended Calvary Chapel more than once or twice in the early 70's but the tent and ocean baptisms have always been emblematic of the Jesus Movement for me.

Theologically, father and son were on roughly the same page. They preached damnation for the unsaved, the wickedness of homosexuality, and what the son, looking back later, would call "a general hopelessness about the world," one salved only by the promise of an imminent, cataclysmic Second Coming.

I was thinking there was a single paragraph that succinctly described the problems fundamentalists have with him but the list takes a while to recite. Right after talking about his divorce, comes this

Still, his condition alienated him further from his father's church, where depression is widely viewed as a spiritual problem bespeaking flawed faith.

William Alnor, a longtime Calvary congregant and former pastor, expressed the view in stark terms: "I don't believe any Christian leader should be flirting with depression."

Fundamentalists have also been troubled in recent years by gestures they see as a throwback to paganism, such as Smith Jr. giving the sign of the cross at services and hanging his sanctuary with paintings of Jesus in the iconic Byzantine style. In 2005, to make matters worse, he took several extended retreats to a Catholic monastery in Big Sur.

One of his most vocal detractors, William Alnor's wife, Jackie, denounced his "decline into Catholic contemplative mystical religion" and protested outside his church. "I could sense the darkness around that place," she wrote on her Apostasy Alert webpage.

The squall intensified with the 2005 publication of the elder Smith's book "When Storms Come," which Smith Jr. edited. Among many additions Smith Jr. made was a quote from a priest, Anthony de Mello, whose Jesuit affiliation alarmed evangelicals. And on Page 103, Smith Jr. inserted the suggestion that breathing exercises might put one in a spiritually receptive state.

This seemed, in the eyes of some, dangerously close to endorsing a Buddhist practice.

Buddhist! How horrible! This list would not be complete without...

The son: "I met homosexuals who were trying to live celibate lives or be heterosexual, and I heard all about their struggles, and I never wanted to exacerbate that. My heart went out to them. Listening convinced me that homosexual orientation is not something people chose."

One by one they fell away, the doctrinal pillars of the house his father built. Yet Smith Jr. remained under the Calvary Chapel roof, not wanting to embarrass dad by leaving.

This summary and analysis is quite interesting.

Donald E. Miller, a USC professor of religion and author of a book on American evangelism, calls the elder Smith a pioneer of "new-paradigm Christianity" — one who championed contemporary music and casual dress in church, jettisoned traditional church symbols and rituals, deemphasized theological sophistication and paved the way for the modern megachurch. But he remained an old-school biblical literalist, he said, and the contrast with his son is probably fueled by generational differences.

"While Chuck Smith was very much a culturally savvy guy in the 1960s, nevertheless he came out of the Depression period, whereas his son grew up in a completely different era," Miller said.

For Smith Jr.'s part, he believed he was carrying on the work of radical outreach his father started in the 1960s. Since its early days as "the culturally relevant, rock-n-roll worship, hippie church," he believed, Calvary Chapel had regressed into a "hunker-down mentality — ride out the vagaries of this evil world until Jesus comes to the rescue."

The practice of yoga is about becoming clearly self-aware. As I practice yoga over the years, I work to become increasingly aware of my perceptions and beliefs--and to acknowledge they are only my individual perceptions and beliefs. To speak as if they are "truth" with a capital "T" is not to live in reality, and it's certainly not the practice of satya.

To Tell the Truth, The yogic practice of satya (truth) focuses on carefully choosing our words so they do the least harm—and most good.
By Judith Hanson Lasater in Yoga Journal

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."
It has always bothered me that this verse gets emphasized and interpreted to mean that so many others are wrong (ie. One Way!).

When the football team from the church sponsored college I attended was playing a team from a college sponsored by another denomination in the playoffs, a great cartoon was posted on a bulletin board. The dialogue was something like, "Coach, the players from the other college are Christians and pray for victory. Why do we expect God to answer our prayer to win the big game?" Placing his hand on the players shoulder, the coach replied, "Look, you play football and leave the theology to me."

Why is it so important that our interpretation of Christianity be regarded as the truth for everyone. Also it is downhill from there, worrying about pagan babies going to Hell. I just don't think that was the purpose of Jesus' life.

This interview with Barbara Brown Taylor on her book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, posted on a friend's blog, reminded me there had been a story on NPR that I couldn't find because I couldn't remember who it was about when I went back.

Rather than seeing mindfulness as a kind of talent, like artistic flair or musicality, he believes that everyone willing to make the requisite effort can attain it.

-- Winifred Gallagher, Working on God

This quote caught my attention while reading The Word of the Day from Dictionary.com. I clicked on the link to Amazon.com and read the following review. I see some parallels to the thoughts I am having. I also envy her search in that I have thought about making a disciplined study of my own faith; not so much to seek out various religions but to see what resonates within me and where I could find a spiritual advisor. I especially like the last lines of the review. I can not get away from Christianity but feel that the third century codification missed the mark. I would like to learn more about my reaction that it had more to do with Constantine's earthly kingdom than God's Kingdom.

A self-described "neoagnostic," Gallagher takes her readers with her as she "works on God," her phrase for trying to find where religion fits in her life. On one hand, she finds the traditional Roman Catholicism in which she was reared too embarrassing for an intellectual to profess. On the other hand, she feels she needs some kind of spirituality to find meaning in life. Her approach is an eclectic one. Sampling Zen Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, she tries to construct a religion tailored to her individual needs. Ultimately, she discovers her life is so saturated by Christian language and images that she must use them as her starting point. However, she refuses to accept the doctrine of Christ's atonement. Pointing out that many of Christianity's central tenets, Christ's divinity, Christ's participation in the Trinity, were not codified until the 3rd century, Gallagher feels justified in taking for herself the title "Early Christian," as someone who can say only, "Jesus is special, but I'm not sure just how special." Gallagher's honesty and integrity will resonate with those who can acknowledge a "resurrection experience" but who can't quite profess the Resurrection.

Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc

Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of struggle against repression and brutality. In The Voice of Hope, she emerges as a human being--a mother of two sons as well as an inspirational human rights advocate and all-around moral compass. Once a soft-spoken scholar living in England, this daughter of a Burmese military hero catapulted to prominence as the spokesperson for her country's beleaguered democracy movement. Even when imprisoned by Burma's ruling junta, she continued to work for freedom and human rights, eventually winning the Nobel Peace Prize and attracting the world's attention to the plight of Burmese dissidents. The Voice of Hope chronicles nine months' worth of her conversations with British-born Alan Clements, a Burma expert and former Buddhist monk. The two discuss love, truth, power, compassion, and freedom from fear as well as Aung San Suu Kyi's own brand of activist Buddhism. In the process, a portrait emerges of a profoundly religious as well as political leader, a woman who used years of house arrest to develop her meditative practice, mindfulness, and spiritual strength.

From review on Amazon.com

Donna Freitas, a professor of religion at St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vt., wonders if she is the only Christian on the planet who admires Madonna's pose in this NPR piece that I found quite interesting. The standard "Christian" reaction to so many things is quite shallow.

Does Age Quash Our Spirit of Adventure? - It thought this NPR piece was interesting. I do feel different than when I was young and I don't think that is a negative thing.

If you want to practice with intense energies, a good way to start is with your own feelings and moods, and to start small. Stephen Levine once wrote that working with heavy emotional issues can be like getting into the ring with a 500-pound wrestler—if you haven't trained for it, the wrestler will throw you in the first clench. One of the best ways to train for working with energy is to practice during private moments of meltdown.

One of my favorite times for this kind of practice is the onset of road rage. Like many otherwise reasonable people, I have an inner road warrior who emerges only when I'm alone behind the wheel. He's mouthy, cynical, easily offended—a cross between a New York City cabbie and one of those eccentric hit men from a Quentin Tarantino film. There's a lot of energy in this persona, however. So when I notice myself having snarly private dialogues with a driver who has cut me off at an exit, I try to use the occasion for exploring the energy inside my anger.

It was refreshing to find honesty about Road Rage after getting quite a ways into this article by Sally Kempton Feel Your Way Our intense emotions—even negative ones, like fear, anger, sadness, and grief—can be a path to spiritual growth. I remember finding value in another article of hers from Yoga Journal but it is not one that I have posted. Her personal experience seemed honest and not contrived. I liked the article.

I saw this piece on NPR about Composer Tan Dun, who grew up in Mao's China and saw his parents taken away during the cultural revolution for re-education. I enjoy traditional Chinese music and so the influence of western music on him is quite interesting. Tan Dun won an Oscar and a Grammy for his score for the 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I did not go to see "The Passion of the Christ" and still have no desire to view it. In today's LA Times, their film critic Tim Rutten, has a rant on why the media has not reopened the discussion of the movie given the recent anti-Semitic tirade by Mel Gibson when he was stopped for suspected drunk driving. This quote summarizes why I am glad I made that decision:

When it was released..., there were some who argued that, apart from its lurid sadomasochistic aura -- critic Leon Wieseltier called it "a sacred snuff film" - Gibson's narrative was studded with the kinds of anti-Semitic caricatures once associated with medieval passion plays.

I do not enjoy going to see films based on murder and violence because I do not want those images in my memory. I do not need to watch this movie to know "Christ died for me." That is not where my faith journey is taking me.

'Why did Jesus die? - Spong, 2006

Again I find what John Shelby Spong says very helpful. From his daily Newsletter:

[A person] from the Internet writes:
"In your answer of May 10, 2006, you wrote, 'I see Christianity at its heart as deeply humanistic. The core doctrines of the Christian faith suggest that God is revealed through a human life...so I see secular humanism as the residual remains of Christianity once the supernatural elements have been removed.' In the next paragraph, you say you do not think 'the supernatural understanding of God is essential to Christianity.'

In your answer of May 3, 2006, you reject 'the interpretation of Jesus' death as a sacrifice required by God to overcome the sins of the world' as making God 'barbaric' and 'Jesus the victim of a sadistic deity.' This 'deeply violates the essential note of the Gospel, which is that God is love calling us to love' and is not 'found in the pious but destructive phrase, "Jesus died for my sins."'

My question is: If Jesus did not die on the cross to atone for humanity's sins, why did he have to die to bring us the message that 'God is love, calling us to love'? "

Dear Don,

First, let me say that you have rightly summarized my thinking, for which I am grateful. Second, this understanding does challenge the traditional understanding of the cross as the place where the price of our redemption was paid and leaves many people with a gaping vacuum at the center of their understanding of Christianity. You have articulated that well.
I believe what you need to do is to free yourself of the theistic God who lives above the sky and who guides human history to accomplish the divine will. That mentality forces us to find purpose in everything. Locked into this view of God, the early Christians sought to find purpose in the cross. That is how we got substitutionary theories of the atonement and began to view the cross through the lens of the sacrificial Day of Atonement that the Jews called Yom Kippur. In the liturgy of Yom Kippur a perfect Lamb of God was slain. Its blood spread on the mercy seat of the Holy of Holies that was thought of as God's place of occupation. Therefore, to come to God, people had to come through the blood of the lamb. Then a second animal was brought out and the priest began to confess the sins of the people. As the priest confessed, the sins of the people were thought to leave the people and land on the back and head of this animal. Then burdened with the sins of the people, this animal was driven into the wilderness. The sin bearer (called 'the scape goat') thus carried the sins of the people away. Both the sacrificial lamb and the sin-bearing goat became symbols by which Jesus was understood. In our liturgies today, we still say "O Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."

If that understanding is removed from the cross, as I believe it must be, then questions like 'What is the meaning of the cross?' and 'Why did Jesus die?' become perennial questions. Take purpose out of them and what is left is a picture of a free man - whole, complete, with his life being taken cruelly from him. In the portrait painted in the gospels of the cross, the dying Jesus speaks a word of forgiveness to the soldiers who drive the nails. He speaks a word of encouragement to the thief who is portrayed as penitent. He speaks a word of comfort to his mother in her bereavement. Whether these are historical memories or not is not important to me and I do not think any of them literally happened. They are, however, expressions of the corporate memory of Jesus. Here was a life being put to death unjustly but instead of clinging to his fleeting existence, he is still giving life away. That is a picture of a new level of human consciousness. The cross reveals for me the infinite love of God calling the world and me to a new humanity, calling us beyond survival toward the deepest secrets of transcendence. That is what the cross means to me and it moves me deeply.

I hope this helps you.

-- John Shelby Spong

Polishing the Mirror, Svadhyaya, self-reflection

To this end, the classical means of svadhyaya include using a mantra, reading a text, or sitting with a spiritual master (guru). In fact, the ancients used the word darshana—which means something like a mirror image—to describe the teaching contained in a particular group of sacred texts, and they used the same word to describe what happens when we sit with a spiritual master. In both cases, we can see our neuroses, our small-mindedness, and our pettiness mirrored completely. At the same time, we can also see beyond our current state to something like our divine potential. And that too is who we are.

I am enjoying articles I am reading from Yoga journal. This one especially shows how Yoga practices can enhance rather than conflict with a belief system.

The tradition of svadhyaya suggests that any sacred or inspirational text that offers insight into the human condition can serve as a mirror, reflecting our true nature back to us. Classical texts of this sort might include the Yoga Sutra, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, the Talmud, and the writings of the saints of any tradition. But the source might also be any spiritual or inspiring text we use not simply abstractly or academically but as a means of deeper self-understanding.

My daughter picked up The Da Vinci Code while we were vacationing in Italy including visiting the Vatican. I look forward to some opportunities to talk about faith. One came about on the plane home as she was reading it and I was reading a special addition of a magazine on how we descended from apes. I picked up that she was thinking that evolution was incompatible somehow with Christian belief. I don't think she has learned how scientific knowledge does not have to diminish your belief in God or conflict with our faith. I talked about how the belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun was threatening to the church since the created order by God puts earth at the center. No one worries about that now but evolution is a similar issue. If your God consists of things science can't explain, then God gets smaller with each scientific discovery. I hope we have some more opportunities before she leaves for college in August. We haven't had enough talks like this. I wanted to talk more about the wonder that is a God that infuses everything including us.
Maybe I will get a change to read the book so we can discuss.

I was writing in my paper journal about my role in my local congregation and relationship with the Pastor, when I thought about developing a spiritual community there that shares my interests and faith journey concerns. I couldn't remember where I had read about how the left has not addressed the spiritual needs and values while the right has and there are mega-churches to prove it. I looked here and found it to be my first journal entry. I didn't say much about why I posted this interview with Rabbi Michael Lerner but this is where I got that thought.

The political right has gained momentum and adherents in recent years, Lerner says, because only conservative Christianity has been vocally and unapologetically addressing the spiritual needs of Americans, their quest for meaning in a materialist, consumerist culture.

Although I have a developed a respect for other spiritual traditions, I seemed to have retained a scoffing attitude towards Christians who switch to Buddhism or other eastern traditions. Although I had respect for those who grew up in these traditions or converted from non-belief, there seems to have been a defensive mechanism within me. I assumed they switched to the other faith tradition as a rebellion or just to be different. This was not based on actual experience but it seems to be unexamined tenet. Was I defensive because I thought it might happen to me?

For some reason, As I read an article in Yoga Journal called The Heart's Intention, I felt a respect who had found this source of wisdom much earlier than I had. Maybe I am feeling more comfortable with retaining my identity as a Christian after listening to Bishop Spong. I also want to reread The Raft is not the Shore which I read in the early 70's when it first came out. I have been thinking about where I am at in my spiritual journey as I quoted but did not comment on this article about syncretism

Mindful Yoga - an old Post out of order

Recently, I posted Mindful Yoga to the worksite bulletin board. It is a good introduction to coming to Yoga with a good attitude. The short article is not that deep but it talks about moving

yourself a little closer to greater openness, purer lines of energy, and deeper stillness. That's yoga.

Then at the last session, the instructor came in and started reading from The Deeper Dimension of Yoga by Georg Phd Feuerstein. I was able to find where she read from at the beginning of the first chapter, What is Yoga?, on Amazon.com. I read,

At the core of Yoga is the realization of the transcendental Reality itself...

and later

Yoga is not easy to define. In most general terms, the Sansrit word Yoga stand for "spiritual discipline... Thus Yoga is the equivilent of Christian mysticism

I have had a long time interest in reading about Christian mysticism so this feels like another strand of my life becoming more evident.

The Truth at the Heart of 'The Da Vinci Code

by Elaine Pagels

I don't know how long NPR keeps items posted. I tried to find a few choice quotes but I like the entire article.

NPR.org, May 22, 2006 · Archbishop Angelo Amato, a top Vatican official, recently railed against The Da Vinci Code as a work "full of calumnies, offenses and historical and theological errors.'' As a historian, I would agree that no reputable scholar has ever found evidence of author Dan Brown's assertion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and no scholar would take seriously Brown's conspiracy theories about the Catholic group Opus Dei.

But what is compelling about Brown's work of fiction, and part of what may be worrying Catholic and evangelical leaders, is not the book's many falsehoods.

What has kept Brown on the bestseller list for years and inspired a movie is, instead, what is true – that some views of Christian history were buried for centuries because leaders of the early Catholic Church wanted to present one version of Jesus' life: theirs.

Some of the alternative views of who Jesus was and what he taught were discovered in 1945 when a farmer in Egypt accidentally dug up an ancient jar containing more than 50 ancient writings. These documents include gospels that were banned by early church leaders, who declared them blasphemous.

It is not surprising that The Da Vinci Code builds on the idea that many early gospels were hidden and previously unknown. Brown has said that part of his inspiration was one of these so-called Gnostic Gospels as presented in a book I wrote on the subject. It took only three lines from the Gospel of Philip to send Brown off to write his novel:

The companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. And Jesus loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often... The rest of the disciples were jealous, and said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?''

Those who have studied the Gospel of Philip see it as a mystical text and don't take the suggestion that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene literally.

Still, by homing in on that passage and building a book around it, Brown brought up subjects that the Catholic Church would like to avoid. He raised the big what-ifs: What if the version of Jesus' life that Christians are taught isn't the right one? And perhaps as troubling in a still-patriarchal church: What if Mary Magdalene played a more important role in Jesus' life than we've been led to believe, not as his wife perhaps, but as a beloved and valued disciple?

In other words, what Brown did with his runaway hit was popularize awareness of the discovery of many other secret gospels, including the Gospel of Judas that was published in April.

There have long been hints that the New Testament wasn't the only version of Jesus' life that existed, and that even the gospels presented there were subject to misinterpretation. In 1969, for instance, the Catholic Church ruled that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, as many people had been taught. The church blamed the error on Pope Gregory the Great, who in 591 A.D. gave a sermon in which he apparently conflated several women in the Bible, including Mary Magdalene and an unnamed sinner who washes Jesus' feet with her tears.

But even that news didn't reach all Christians, and it is the rare religious leader who now works hard to spread the word that the New Testament is just one version of events crafted in the intellectual free-for-all after Christ's death. At that time, church leaders were competing with each other to figure out what Christ said, what he meant -- and perhaps most important, what writings would best support the emerging church.

What we know now is that the scholars who championed the "Gnostic'' gospels are among the ones who lost the battle.

In the decades after Jesus' death, these texts and many others were circulating widely among Christian groups from Egypt to Rome, Africa to Spain, and from today's Turkey and Syria to France. So many Christians throughout the world knew and revered these books that it took more than 200 years for hardworking church leaders who denounced the texts to successfully suppress them.

The copies discovered in 1945, for example, were taken from the sacred library of one of the earliest monasteries in Egypt, founded about 10 years after the conversion of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to join the fledgling church. For the first time, Christians were no longer treated as members of a dangerous and seditious group and could form open communities in which many lived together. Like monks today, they kept in their monastery libraries a very wide range of books they read aloud for inspiration.

But these particular texts appeared to upset Athanasius, then archbishop of Alexandria; in the year 367 he sent out an Easter Letter to monks all over Egypt ordering them to reject what he called "illegitimate and secret books.'' Apparently, some monks at the Egyptian monastery defied the archbishop's order and took more than 50 of the books out of the library, sealed them in a heavy jar and buried them under the cliff where they were found 1,600 years later.

In ordering the books destroyed, Athanasius was continuing the battle against the "Gnostic'' gospels begun 200 years earlier by his revered predecessor, Bishop Irenaeus, who was so distressed that certain Christians in his congregations in rural Gaul (present day France) treasured such "illegitimate and secret writing'' that he labeled them heretics. Irenaeus insisted that of the dozens of writings revered by various Christians, only four were genuine -- and these, as you guessed already, are those now in the New Testament, called by the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Irenaeus said there could be only four gospels because, according to the science of the time, there were four principal winds and four pillars that hold up the sky. Why these four gospels? He explained that only they were actually written by eyewitnesses of the events they describe -- Jesus' disciples Matthew and John, or by Luke and Mark, who were disciples of the disciples.

Few scholars today would agree with Irenaeus. We cannot verify who actually wrote any of these accounts, and many scholars agree that the disciples themselves are not likely to be their authors. Beyond that, nearly all the gospels that Irenaeus detested are also attributed to disciples -- some, including the Gospel of Thomas, to the original 12 apostles. Nonetheless, Athanasius and other church leaders succeeded in suppressing the gospels they (and Irenaeus) called illegitimate, won the emperor's favor and succeeded in dominating the church.

What, then, do these texts say, and why did certain leaders find them so threatening?

First, they suggest that the way to God can be found by anyone who seeks. According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus suggests that when we come to know ourselves at the deepest level, we come to know God: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.'' This message – to seek for oneself – was not one that bishops like Irenaeus appreciated: Instead, he insisted, one must come to God through the church, "outside of which,'' he said, "there is no salvation.''

Second, in texts that the bishops called "heresy,'' Jesus appears as human, yet one through whom the light of God now shines. So, according to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "I am the light that is before all things; I am all things; all things come forth from me; all things return to me. Split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up a rock, and you will find me there.'' To Irenaeus, the thought of the divine energy manifested through all creation, even rocks and logs, sounded dangerously like pantheism. People might end up thinking that they could be like Jesus themselves and, in fact, the Gospel of Philip says,

"Do not seek to become a Christian, but a Christ.'' As Irenaeus read this, it was not mystical language, but "an abyss of madness, and blasphemy against Christ.''

Worst of all, perhaps, was that many of these secret texts speak of God not only in masculine images, but also in feminine images. The Secret Book of John tells how the disciple John, grieving after Jesus was crucified, suddenly saw a vision of a brilliant light, from which he heard Jesus' voice speaking to him: "John, John, why do you weep? Don't you recognize who I am? I am the Father; I am the Mother; and I am the Son.'' After a moment of shock, John realizes that the divine Trinity includes not only Father and Son but also the divine Mother, which John sees as the Holy Spirit, the feminine manifestation of the divine.

But the Gospel of Mary Magdalene -- along with the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Philip -– all show Peter, the leader of the disciples, challenging the presence of women among the disciples. We hear Peter saying to Jesus, "Tell Mary to leave us, because women are not worthy of (spiritual) life.'' Peter complains that Mary talks too much, displacing the role of the male disciples. But Jesus tells Peter to stop, not Mary! No wonder these texts were not admitted into the canon of a church that would be ruled by an all-male clergy for 2,000 years.

Those possibilities opened by the "Gnostic'' gospels -- that God could have a feminine side and that Jesus could be human -- are key ideas that Dan Brown explored in "The Da Vinci Code,'' and are no doubt part of what made the book so alluring. But the truth is that the texts he based his novel upon contain much deeper and more important mysteries than the ones Tom Hanks tries to solve in the movie version that opened this weekend.

The real mystery is what Christianity and Western civilization would look like had the "Gnostic'' gospels never been banned. Because of the discovery by that Egyptian farmer in 1945, we now at least have the chance to hear what the "heretics'' were saying, and imagine what might have been.

Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, is a professor of religion at Princeton. She wrote this article for the Perspective section of the San Jose Mercury News.

Compassionate view rather than anger - an old Post out of order

I was thinking about my anger towards a certain in-law couple that will be visiting soon. As I read Unmasking Anger by Alan Reder, I liked the idea of viewing them with compassion rather than righteous anger over a particular situation with another family member. In this article, he is quoting

Ven. Thubten Chodron, an American-born Buddhist nun and author of Working with Anger (Snow Lion, 2001), (who) finds ... insights into anger from traditional Tibetan Buddhist sources.

. . .

Chodron also thinks that compassion is a far better approach to social action than anger. A compassionate mind looks at a situation more broadly, seeking a solution that's acceptable to everybody.

. . .

To illustrate ..., Chodron points to the explosive tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians, a tragedy she finds especially painful because she was born Jewish. The anger each side feels stems largely, she says, from being so obsessed with the insults and injuries to their own people that they forget human concerns on the other side. "To correct injustice and harm, you have to take into consideration the feelings and needs of everyone in the situation," she says.

Chodron's unspoken implication: What holds for Middle Eastern political tensions also holds for individuals everywhere. The havoc anger wreaks can make taming this terrible force look almost impossible. Yet the task is paradoxically simple if we remember our cues: Take the compassionate view of things. Wait out the biochemical surge. Ride the wave.

Discovering Karen Armstrong

I discovered Karen Armstrong today. (May 19, 2006) She was interviewed on To The Best of our Knowledge


As I explored, I found this interview at Powell's Books. Two sections I found quite inspiring.

Compassion, the meaning of compassion — that comes up a lot. And, "What is the role of belief in faith? Do you believe in God?" I point out that that's a very Christian question, a very Western, modern question. It's not actually the proper question, but nevertheless it's what people want to know. For them, that is the question.

Dave: And what is the question that you prefer to ask instead?

Armstrong: I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

People have such clear ideas of what God is — you know: creator, father, personality watching over me. It's not what I believe in, even though I like to use the word sometimes. So people will ask, "Is traditional faith wrong?" And I say, "No." It doesn't really matter what you believe as long as it leads you to practical compassion. If your belief in a traditional God makes you come out imbued with a desire to feel with your fellow human beings, to make a place for them in your heart, to work to end suffering in the world, then it's good. Nobody has the last word on God, whether they're conservative or liberals.

and

Dave: What do you want readers to take away from your books? Is there one thing more than others?

Armstrong: The main thing I want them to get is this idea of compassion. That's what we need now.

Dave: That everything boils down to the Golden Rule.

Armstrong: I'm convinced of it. It's in all the traditions, ....

All the world religions developed in violent societies like our own. All of them came from societies where civilization seemed on the point of collapsing under the weight of aggression and violence. Where old values were going out, no new ones were coming to take their place. The first impulse in many of these religions was a revulsion from violence. That's what we need now, to get back to some of that.

See also:

Karen Armstrong Writes 'Biography' of the Bible

The age of the spirit

What to make of Suffering

Videos present a Fresh Take on several Old, Old Stories

Belief and teaching

Equating 'faith' with 'belief

Bumping into Zen, while waiting for God

Four Distinct Stages of Life

After the Laundry, the Laundry By Judith Hanson Lasater

In India, the home of yoga, there is a traditional Hindu social model that underscores the change we continuously experience. Called the Ashramas, or Stages of Life, it defines four distinct periods in life, during which people can and should do certain things. The first, brahmacharya (brahmic conduct), is the student stage, during which one learns about oneself and the world; the second, grihastha (householder), is the stage of family and societal obligations. The last two stages focus on renunciation. During the third, vanaprastha (forest dweller), one is freer to begin a contemplative life. And during stage four, samnyasa (renunciation), one goes deeper, surrendering all worldly things and living as a simple mendicant.

I was reading this article today. I was amazed when I got to this section because I was thinking the same thing about my life in the past few days. See how the stages correspond.

As a young child, I was curious and enjoyed reading, I could wonder through the library and marvel at all that these books represented. The student stage for me lasted beyond college. I read a lot when I was working construction in Illinois, mentored under a comtemplative peace activist pastor by living with him and his family while helping to rebuild a lot cabin in Appalachia, and also studied non-violence for two years in a social justice oriented community.

I then got married, more involved in learning for advancement in my job, and then eventually a father. I even became the congregational president of our protestant church.

Four years ago at 50, I started a regular yoga practice. I had the feeling that I was over the hump at my job and headed towards retirement. I didn't have to worry about advance or more training at my job. I have still continued to learn about areas in my profession but I think this blog demonstrates where my interest is. I've always wanted to literally be a "forest dweller" but know I am doing it figuratively.

I recently had a fantasy of getting rid of most of my belongings after retirement. When my daughter would come to visit, I would be doing yoga in an almost bare house. I doubt if that would reconcile with my spouse's vision but, like I said, this vision was just day dreaming.

A local talk by Bishop John Shelby Spong came at just the right time for me as I have recently begun to struggle with my view of Christ as mentioned in my posts on Easter and April 12th. At one point he shouted "Don't tell me Christ died for my sins!" Here is a quote I got from his his internet site.

"We were not created perfect, as the Bible contends, only to fall into sin through an act of rebellion, which necessitated a rescue operation, by an intervening savior. We are evolving creatures. What we need is the positive power that enables us to become more deeply and fully human. This new perspective necessitates a whole new Christology."

The noticeably-elderly audience was very enthusiastic as he spoke on the Abundant Life, Love, and Being. I have been favorably impressed with him before having seen him on church videos where he was one of the people being interviewed about a topic. I had no idea how radical his view were though.

Syncretism - April 2006

Syncretism . .

But if one plunges with both feet into yogic spirituality while also pursuing a conventional faith, one risks what theologians call syncretism—or "riding two horses at once," as Needleman puts it. "It's very hard sometimes to try to be a deep Christian contemplative and at the same time be a Hindu—a Vedantan, let's say," he notes. "Not because they disagree but because the imagery sometimes is so conflicting."

Reconstructionist rabbi Sheila Weinberg also believes that syncretism is a real danger for yoga students. . . . . "I think you have to choose a community and history and identity that's going to be your home," she says. "And then I think it's possible to borrow really excellent, valuable practices that can be seen as nondenominational from other traditions. [But only if] we don't start getting confused in terms of belonging to many different communities, because then everything will be dissipated."

Huston Smith cautions anyone who mixes yoga and religion to consider the ego that does the mixing. Many people, he notes, approach their spirituality "salad bar" style, as if saying to themselves, "Oh, I think I'll take a little hatha yoga for my body and a little vipassana for my meditation." Observes Smith: "As [late Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chˆgyam] Trungpa said, the error there is thinking you know what you need. But if you knew that, Trungpa concluded, you would already be at the end of the spiritual path instead of the beginning."

From Reconcilable Differences
The question on everyone's mind: Does yoga conflict with my religion? Yoga Journal

The Urban Legend site, Snopes, has an interesting explanation of how Easter was named. "The name for this holiday comes from much older times whose customs we're now not all that familiar with. Many old religions had a Spring Goddess, a special deity who breathed life back into the world, both by banishing Old Man Winter and by encouraging growing things to grow and living things to mate. She went by many names . . . and those who lived in the region that is now Germany knew her as Eastre.

I have always thought Easter is kind of overblown. Pentecost was a more important day in the life of the church and seems so much more authentic.. Both Easter and Christmas became important only later as Christianity spread.

Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

Advice from Tal Ben-Shahar

Finding Happiness in a Harvard Classroom
All Things Considered, March 22, 2006 ·

I bought "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts for $6.50. Copyright 1957, cover price - $1.95, I remember I was enthralled when I heard him speak at my college in the 70's. I feel like I have come full circle in some ways or maybe I never left. In the preface, he says "the various wisdoms of the West, do not offer much guidance to the art of living in the modern world where familiar concepts have dissolved and we find ourselves adrift." I have rediscovered my interest in eastern thought and practice. Recently I have come face to face with my lack of interest in the Christian story of salvation. I love Jesus and what he did and said but don't care much for the structured system of theology that climbed to the top of the heap from early Christian beliefs.

I am fascinated with this interview with Rabbi Michael Lerner that I found on Grist.