Karen Armstrong Writes 'Biography' of the Bible; Interview on Talk of the Nation.

I have not read her books yet but I am getting interested since I discovered her.

Here are other stories they referenced from 2004 & 2005.

Karen Armstrong: Myths and the Modern World; Fresh Air from WHYY, March 8, 2004. She's written a new memoir, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, about her life in the convent and the spiritual quest that followed.

Armstrong Novel Extends Post-Convent Story; Weekend Edition Sunday, March 28, 2004 · NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Karen Armstrong, author of The Spiral Staircase about leaving the convent, her diagnosis with epilepsy, and her self-described "climb out of darkness."

Karen Armstrong: Myths and the Modern World; Talk of the Nation, November 7, 2005 · As soon as people became aware of their own mortality, writes Karen Armstrong, they created stories that gave their lives meaning, explained their relationship to the spiritual world, and instructed them on how to live their lives. Armstrong talks about her new book, A Short History of Myth, which explores how these stories morph and change, and why they remain compelling.

Dr. Rayner Hesse - Cooking with the Bible

Good Food, KCRW - SAT DEC 16, 2006

Tilapia on a stick and cooked over an open fire is what Jesus served to his disciples as he talked with them on the bank of sea of Galilee. Dr. Rayner Hesse on this segment of Good Food on KCRW said that this would have been available in the ancient Middle East. This caught my attention since my spouse and I were introduced to Tilapia prepared and eaten in a similar way: flame cooked in the skin with slashes on the sides. We picked the meat right off the bone and skin as the Filipino members of our church congregation instructed us. We both thought it was great and have continued to eat it prepared various ways. Eating with my hands always feels biblical and this confirms that felt connection.

Today's session of To The Best of our Knowledge interviewed a Californian who made it a personal pilgrimage to visit the sites associated with his states visionaries. The second part on maps was also very interesting since I have always enjoyed reading maps and they are a large part of my work.

Erik Davis, a fifth generation Californian, tells Jim Fleming that geographically and culturally, his state supports diversity and exploration. Davis is the author of “The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape.” The book features photographs by Michael Rauner, some of which can be seen at ttbook.org. Also, Peter Turchi is the author of “Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer.” He tells Steve Paulson that both map-making and writing place great importance on the empty spaces.

I found it quite interesting that the first book begins with the ancient rock carvings that must have been created by visionaries. I want to make it out to China Lake sometime to go on the tour they have there.

Scholars try to reconcile 'problematic' religious texts
This is typical of the Saturday morning religion articles in the LA Times that I find interesting.

Experts cited "problematic" passages from the Hebrew Scripture, the New Testament and the Koran that assert the superiority of one belief system over others.

As an example, the Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith, ecumenical and interreligous official of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, quoted from the Gospel of Mark: "Go into the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
. . . .
In explaining the passage from the Gospel of Mark, Smith said that the troubling portion was appended a century after it was written -- when the four Gospels were compiled.

He said the longer ending, which added 12 verses, was written at a time when Christians either were questioning their faith in the resurrection of Jesus or defending it against skeptics and nonbelievers.

When I started writing, I had planned to write my spiritual autobiography as my profile on this blog. I have not gotten beyond my original entry and my strategy now is that the autobiography will be embedded in the blog.

That autobiography would include my understanding of theologians as someone who is trying to destroy your faith. This was my understanding when I was involved in the Jesus movement in my last years of high school. I don't remember anyone saying this exactly but I picked up the idea that this was the main job of scholars of the bible. It can be seen in this description of Jesus Movement Pastor Chuck Smith who "deemphasized theological sophistication."

During my college years, I found scholars (in person and through books) strengthening my faith. Unlike now, I still thought that there was "Truth" out there that some folks had and I wanted to find or understand.

I remember one day in biblical koine Greek class where our college professor, Dr. Cain, was helping us to think more critically. We read a passage that seemed troubling or a challenge to our faith. I don't remember what that might have been but after we floundered around for a while, he supplied more information that made more sense of the passage.

Over thirty years later, I now find myself wondering how scholars or just anyone who has been to seminary remain believers. This is where I find Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong helpful. Not that I have read that much by either of them but I see them as wise and experienced with a great deal of theological education. I often long for a sustained retreat to read, write, and reflect such as I mentioned in this blog entry. The retreat would contain time to ponder but also time to just meditate and let go of all thinking.

Bishop Spong wrote the following answer to a question about the pagan beliefs and practices that Christianity appears to have borrowed.

It is now quite obvious that as Christianity moved out of its Jewish womb into the Mediterranean world, it was introduced to, conformed with and shaped by the culture.

For example, the virgin birth did not enter the Christian story until the 9th decade. There were lots of virgin birth stories in the pagan religions of the Empire. They were clearly mythological interpretive devices. The cannibalistic ideas associated with the Christian Eucharist in which the flesh and blood of the savior figure are eaten and drunk clearly have pagan origins. The account of a hero figure dying and returning from death is also present in many ancient pagan sources. Easter was a pagan word for spring and the return of the earth to life after the winter. That is why the crucifixion of Jesus was moved to the season of the Passover so that his victory over death could be celebrated at the same time the forms of life showed victory over the death of winter by coming to life again.

Christmas and Hannukah were attached to the return of the sun from its retreat into darkness. Hence both celebrations come at or near the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.

Every religious system is layered over ancient roots. Christianity is no different. That is why anyone who literalizes the Jesus story or the Bible is revealing little more than profound ignorance. That is also why it is my experience that studying the Christian faith requires a lifetime. None of these things, however, distorts the basic Christian message that God calls us to live, to love and to be.

John Shelby Spong

Thomas Merton's name attracted me to this review. The first two paragraphs were interesting.

BOOK REVIEW
'Ghost,' by Alan Lightman

By Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2007

The Trappist mystic Thomas Merton once remarked that, if he were walking down the street and a miracle occurred on the sidewalk in front of him, he'd cross to the other side and do his best to ignore it.

Merton wasn't expressing skepticism about the existence of the miraculous, simply a reservation about its relevance to the lives of men and women, who must work out even their salvation in the world of reason and the five senses. There's a trusting, austere kind of heroism in that, especially for those -- like Merton -- who believe that reason and the senses are inadequate to the task.

I enjoy reading the newspaper. I would like to read more books but I often don't finish them because I forget about them and then when I remember what I was reading, I've lost the flow. So I read "about books" especially reviews in the LA Times or on NPR.

I see lots of items that interest me. Was it Thomas Merton who wrote that our minds are like crows, attracted to bright, glittery, shiny things even if they are worthless pieces of junk we just stuff in our nest.

Nancy Mairs' new book is reviewed at the end of a review of a Norman Mailer book. I have highlighted the paragraph that caught my attention similar to the meaning of life I noticed in The Peaceful Warrior.


A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith
Reviewed by David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 16, 2007

The vagaries of faith, on the other hand, reside at the heart of Nancy Mairs' "A Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith," which in some sense picks up where the author's 1993 book of essays "Ordinary Time" left off. In Mairs' view, faith -- and, for that matter, "God Godself" -- exists almost entirely beyond conscious comprehension, but then, that's exactly how it ought to be.

"The need to reduce God to a person having mental states with which we are familiar -- desire, anger, retribution (but seldom, alas, a sense of humor) -- does God little service and ourselves even less," she writes in this stunning collection. "We would do better to stand before God in silence, allowing the Holy to open to us without our definition or direction. Only God can say what God is. We can only allow ourselves to be taught."

"A Dynamic God" owes its power to Mairs' sensitivity, her attention to detail, her honesty about herself. In previous books, she's taken on child-rearing, infidelity and her struggle with multiple sclerosis. (Wheelchair-bound, she is increasingly unable to care for herself.)

Throughout the essays here, she touches on these and other issues to get at not just the roots of her progressive Catholicism -- Dorothy Day is a favorite role model -- but the nature of faith in a world where it often doesn't seem to be rewarded, where "most of us face, from time to time, more than we can handle."

For Mairs, this is the whole idea: not that good people are blessed or bad ones punished, but that the universe itself is a question mark in which we choose to believe that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. It's messy, inconvenient, even illogical if we look at it intellectually, but if we want to come to terms, what other option do we have?

"My life is a lesson in losses . . ." she notes late in the book. "Thanks to multiple sclerosis, one thing after another has been wrenched from my life -- dancing, driving, walking, working -- and I have learned neither to yearn after them nor to dread further deprivation but to attend to what I have."

What Mairs is after is a quality of "mindfulness," which is how she frames her faith. It's a quiet thing, personal, the province of heart as much as mind.

God, after all, defies the intellect; that is the nature of belief. As Mairs affirms: "Believing as I do that God is the Whole of It, that our every atom bears God into being, I cannot experience myself as truly apart."

david.ulin@latimes.com

David L. Ulin is book editor of The Times.

Prayer

I said I would teach a Adult Sunday School class. There was a suggestion for one called "When God's People Pray" by Jim Cymbala. I looked at the outline of sessions and some sample questions for the first lesson. They seemed pretty good so we ordered it. Can't hurt to talk about prayer.

The class starts tomorrow and as I watched the DVD I have become quite disappointed. He is apparently the pastor of a mega-church in Brooklyn and I tire of his message very quickly. There just doesn't seem much depth to his message. The first question in the study guide is kind of negative and rhetorical; "What do you think Christians and the churches they attend miss out on when calling on God in prayer is not an essential part of their life and worship?" Well from watching the video, I learned they don't get big churches that cost millions of dollars.

Am I too cynical to see his talk as "all about me?" Maybe I have developed a negative attitude and I don't want to be too critical but I have heard one to many stories about a "struggle with Satan." He writes about how a conference asked him to give a talk to 10,000 people (golly, I'm impressed). Then he struggled all night because God told him to change the topic and talk on something he was unprepared for. He had to struggle all night because Satan tried to stop him. The sermon was a great success and a tape of it has traveled all around the world helping people. In a similar vein, both the testimonies that I've heard so far from the people at his church on the DVD are folks who have been saved from drugs. They are supposed to be inspiring but I find them formalistic.

It is a good group of people so we will have a good study. I may be feeling a bit embarrassed to be using something so shallow for such an important topic.

I decided to try to supplement the lesson with other resources. The God We Never Knew by Marcus J. Borg had some good discussion of prayer. The initial summary fits right in; "Being intentional about a life with God - Prayer transforms those who pray." Borg adds depth as he adds on page 124,

"If God is “the one in whom we live and move and have our being” then prayer is not addressing a distant being who may or may not be there and who may or may not answer. Prayer is the primary individual means of consciously entering into and nurturing a relationship with God."

The study seems to emphasize "God give me this, God do that" rather than the depth of relationship Borg is talking about. While acknowledging that prayer is a part of the collective worship life, Borg mainly writes about the individual outside public worship. I made this outline;

• Verbal - Spoken out load and said silently or journaling
• - - - - Petitionary Prayer - Asking God for something, May include thanks
• - - - - Conversational - simply talking to God and ideally will include listening, natural part of relationship and feels like a way of caring for people, “reminds” one of God and spending time in relationship (not thinking about God)
• Nonverbal - meditation and contemplation
• - - - - also “reminds” one of God and spending time in relationship (not thinking about God)
• Many forms
• - - - - repeating mantra - rosary, Jesus Prayer
• - - - - - - - - Lord Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world; fill my mind with your peace, and my heart with your love
• - - - - focusing on one’s breath
• - - - - sitting silently and watching whatever arises in one’s mind without becoming involved in it
• Stilling the mind before God
• - - - - Exercise - turn off the internal flow of words for a minute
• - - - - - - - - mind is busy, noisy, distracting - we would have trouble walking if this was the same as our control over our bodies.
• Combined
• - - - - Begin verbal: thanksgiving, introspection, petitions, and intercessions
• - - - - Move into internal silence with images to create a space for God to speak to us through imagination
• - - - - Acquired contemplation - becoming silent inside
• - - - - Infused contemplation - the experience of God’s presence in the silence of wordlessness

I also like this definition in Gratefulness, the heart of prayer by Brother David Steindl-Rast.
“We must distinguish prayer from prayers. Saying prayers is one activity among others. But prayer is an attitude of the heart that can transform every day activity. We can not say prayers at all times, but we ought to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).That means we ought to keep our heart open for the meaning of life. Gratefulness does this moment by moment. Gratefulness is, therefore, prayerfulness. Moments in which we drink deeply from the source of meaning are moments of prayer, whether we call them so or not. There is no human heart that does not pray, at least in deep dreams that nourish life with meaning. What matters is prayer, not prayers. But prayers are the poetry of prayerful living. Just as poetry gives expression to one’s aliveness and makes one more alive, so prayers give expression to one’s prayerfulness and make one more prayerful. Page 211 (emphasis added).

"Life has just three rules?"
"And you already know them."
"Paradox, humor, change."
"Paradox."
"Life is a mystery. Don't waste time trying to figure it out."
"Humor."
"Keep a sense of humor especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure."
"Change."
"Know that nothing stays the same."
From the movie, The Peaceful Warrior

This caught my attention with the clear statement about the mystery of life. My spouse and I enjoyed watching this movie the other night. I watched the bonus piece on the DVD with comments from the director (I think) and he said he underlined the "teachings" in the book and made sure they were incorporated into the screenplay. So this dialogue was obviously one of those.

As Socrates and Dan reach the top of the hill, we observe Dan starting the exchange and reviewing the teaching he has learned from Socrates with prompting from Socrates. I wanted to highlight this portion because of the clear statement that life is a mystery. Here and in my personal journal, I have commented on how it seems I have finally reached some kind of understand of life. As I have thought about that though, I couldn't explain it if asked. So I like the advice "Don't waste time trying to figure it out."

Sivananda Yoga Farm sounds like an interesting place to visit. I like how it is described:

Ashram living—and visiting—is regimented, but not rigid. The daily schedule (6am-10pm), consists of two simple asana classes, two meditation/satsang sessions that incorporate devotional chanting, a daily lecture on a particular topic, and two amazing vegetarian meals.

"The Buddha made the sangha, the spiritual community, one of the three cornerstones of his path; and Christ told his disciples, "When two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." As these words imply, a group practicing together creates a mystical field, a field of grace." Dailyinsight

I have been thinking about having a monthly small group from our church at our house. I was thinking of something similiar to the satsang that we have attended a few times practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. This last year we talked about a Discipleship Pathway at our church. One of the areas that could be expanded is small groups. Then I thought about my feelings about being a leader but not being nourished at church. Maybe this coming year will be the opportune time for this.

"All it takes is
(1) a decision to have a spiritual dialogue;
(2) some sublime and true words to spark your insight; and
(3) a shared agreement on the ground rules."

Field Observations: An Interview with Wendell Berry
by Jordan Fisher-Smith

Fisher-Smith: Many people who would agree with you in principle don't have the benefit of what you were born into, this ancestral relationship with a place. They find themselves living far from where their ancestors are buried, in unfamiliar land that they didn't grow up with, and don't know much about. How would you advise them to begin deepening their relationship with place?

Berry: Well, I think that I would give the same advice as Gary Snyder. Stop somewhere! Because you can't recover what's lost. There's no going back to get it. You just have to start again, and I think what people have to experience--have to let themselves experience--is the knowledge and understanding and even happiness that come with long association with people and places and kinds of work.

Of course, along with those enrichments there are griefs and worries too. As you learn what's involved in a place, or in a personal relationship, or a kind of work, you come to understand the dangers, the shortcomings, the damages that already have been inflicted, and so on. And if you stay in a place and make connections, make relationships, you experience losses that are difficult to bear.

What we're really talking about is faith, the faith being that if you make a commitment, and hang on until death, there are rewards. The rewards come. Nobody has ever said that this was easy to do, but I think that everybody who has done it has done it out of this faith that there are rewards. My experience suggests very powerfully to me that there are rewards.

Fisher-Smith: The phrase you just used, "make a commitment and hang on until death," reminds me of marriage. Something like half of all American marriages will fail, and forty percent of all adults are single now. That's a larger proportion than any time in this century. Is there a relationship between the present failure rate in marriages and families, and the failure to form a sustainable human relationship with the land?

Berry: As I see it, there is. People pursue perfection, and I suppose that's a thing that humans have a duty to do, in a way. But there's a tendency now to misunderstand this obligation to pursue perfection as a right to be perfect, to have perfection given to you. And so people enter into their relationships with one another and with their places with the idea that they have a right to expect those places and those people and those connections to be perfect, and then when imperfection appears, as it inevitably does, they feel that they have a right to be offended, and they don't see the arrogance and the condescension in that.

It's not up to the other people and the places and the relationships to be perfect. It's up to every participant to make the relationship and the place and the other person as perfect as possible. We don't have a right to give up on our choices and our places and, indeed, our cultural inheritance because it's not perfect. We don't deserve that they should be perfect. We have an obligation to make them perfect, if we can.

Pilgrim at Tinder Creek
This book by Annie Dillard had an impact on me when I read it soon after it was published in 1974. This recent NPR interview got me thinking about how inspiring her works were to me. She is not "larger than life" but comes across in the interview like neighbor rather than a famous author. She continues to inform and inspire as I noticed in this NPR piece after the Thailand tsunami in December 2004.

After reading this Slate review, I want to read her new book, The Maytrees. Until reading this review, I hadn't though about how "Tinker" was written under conditions similar to "Walden." I sometimes think about how I what it would be like to have a time like they took to retreat, write, and contemplate the natural world. I am pretty sure my spouse would not go for too much of that so I don't know how it could work out. We wouldn't want to be apart but she would not tolerate the isolation and silence well. I wonder how long I would last but I think about trying.

I heard Couple's Challenges, Joys of First Year as Pastors this morning from the NPR Series, The Young and the Godly. The excitement and challenges of being a new pastor in a new setting reminded me of so many of our friends but especially a clergy couple. It brings back experiences of from years ago and of my thoughts of if I was being called to ministry. This was especially interesting as it was a United Methodist couple.

We see the plight of the world's poor and the raging forces of war, persecution, violence and injustice. Those realities cause us to dream, work, pray and hope anew for the reign of God to come on earth and soon. If we could change these references from being time oriented to seeing them as our constant prayer that we might become all that we were meant to be, living fully, loving wastefully and having the courage to be our deepest, most real selves, then I think we would understand what the prayer for Christ to come soon was originally meant to communicate.

- John Shelby Spong

I am sure that this is how our friends who are pastors and many of the authors I enjoy reading would explain the Lord's Prayer and the talk of "Christ coming again."

I was fortunate to live with a Lutheran Pastor for 3 months some 30 years ago just after I was out of college. He had quite an influence on me and I ran across some notes about one of his sermon topics that explained how Christians were chosen and appointed. He would explain the difference and how it wasn't either/or. I recently found some notes with these quotes,

"It is heresy to say you meet Jesus along in the garden first and then maybe take Jesus as if he were a commodity to the world's hungry and oppressed people. If you want to be where Jesus has promised to be, it will be in the midst of the world's struggle for justice more than in our air-conditioned sanctuaries, that is biblical, that is theological."

The gospel is, "Do you want to find your life? Then lose it. Do you want to know what it is to be fully human? Then learn to love. Do you want to know what it is to love? Then look at the cross."

He also asked "which kingdom we choose to be in?" "Evil is the invitation to dominate. We have chosen a power over us - Jesus is a redeemer, not a consultant. A invitation to participate in the very life of God - self-giving love."

My frustration with the local church has been quite evident recently. My stomach hurts from thinking about the upcoming church council meeting and a proposal that has been submitted. After a similar frustration with a recent meeting, I thought about my decision to stop attending finance meetings. Not counting the Sunday Service, I thought about how as the church council president, the majority of my time at church activities outside of Sunday Worship is running meetings. I thought about how I preferred putting my time in preparing the the recent Lenten study and pulpit talk. I want some kind of balance so unless there are opportunities available to me for spiritual growth, I will cut back on my administrative duties. Even with the studies and classes, I am most often in a leadership role; when do I get to be a participant?

Our pastor asked if I might take the pulpit to promote our churches Endowment Fund. I felt inspired that it was my favorite day of the church calendar, Pentecost. . Here is that talk with titles substituted for names to protect the innocent...

Good morning and happy Pentecost. Thank you Pastor for that kind introduction and for giving me this opportunity. Thanks choir for that beautiful anthem. Thanks to all those who planned and prepared today’s worship service. The Spirit of Pentecost is evident throughout this service. And thank you to {my spouse} for reading the texts for this Pentecost Sunday. These texts point us towards the Spirit of Pentecost. As we heard in the call to worship, “At the first Pentecost, people understood one another: they heard the message of Christ in their own language, despite all their variety. The Spirit made them capable of doing so. We too speak our own languages with the different ways we live our faith. So we ask the Spirit of Pentecost to help us understand and appreciate one another and unite us in a bond of faith and love.”

Pentecost is a big deal. Happy Pentecost, is that the correct greeting? We celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. Happy Birthday, Happy Pentecost. I am not sure what the proper greeting is. It is somewhat surprising that commercial interests have not exploited Pentecost yet. I haven’t seen advertisements for any Pentecost sales. We are not encouraged to rush around in a busy way preparing for Pentecost.

But look around; there is a festive touch here this morning with so many wearing red. {This church} is not looking to the secular world to let us know what days to celebrate in the Christian Calendar. This congregation has a rich tradition of making sure Pentecost is a special day and celebrated in style. We value the Spirit of Pentecost and appreciate that the worship team and our pastor have made special preparations for today. Welcome Spirit of Pentecost. To all of you, Happy Pentecost.
Pentecost – the name is Greek for a Jewish festival that falls on the fiftieth day of Passover. Jews from all over the Roman Empire had gathered in Jerusalem for the festivities of Pentecost. Listen again to this portion of today’s reading from Acts; “All of the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

The apostles and other believers were suddenly empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel. They went out into the crowds and attracted attention by preaching in the native languages of all the people present. The crowds that gathered were amazed and marveled but some of them thought the apostles were drunk and made fun of them. Peter seized the moment and told the crowd; “Listen to what I say. Indeed, these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days, God declares,
I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your young men shall see visions,
your old men shall dream dreams.

After Peter preached about Jesus’ death and resurrection, about three thousand converts were baptized that day. This is the story of the birth of the church, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit on human flesh that gave birth to the Church. The Spirit of Pentecost.

Just like we should not look to the world to tell us which days are important in the church year, we don’t let the popular culture inform us about the Spirit of Pentecost. The spirit is not to be thought of as Casper the friendly ghost or some phantom from Pirates of the Caribbean. Sister Thomas Bernard MacConnel, a veteran teacher and founder of the Spirituality Center on the campus of Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, remarks that it’s easier for human beings to relate to the stories of Christmas and Easter than to Pentecost. Quote, “Both Christmas and Easter involve person or persons. But Pentecost is about the Holy Spirit, which is not a person in the same sense as Jesus.” “ The Holy Spirit is a harder concept for people just because of our humanity.”

The term “Holy Spirit” comes from the Greek word, paraclete, meaning, “one who is called alongside.” Other synonyms include “ comforter, and encourager.” In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the advocate, to be with you forever.

So what are we to make of this spirit today? Do we need something dramatic? I grew up in the Lutheran church. In my senior year in high school though, I became involved with a group of young people who embraced “signs of the spirit” such as speaking in tongues. In this group, feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit was central but I found that this desire for the signs of the spirit was a bit strained and limiting. Rather than being open to the spirit, this group seemed to try to contain and control the spirit with a specific formula and routine. They emphasized dramatic physical moments such as speaking in tongues but were much less interested in that quiet still voice.

So in that particular group, I didn’t have a strong sense of the spirit. Their view of the movement of the spirit of God seemed to me to be incomplete. They did not seem open to the Spirit of Pentecost moving in new and various ways.
The Spirit of Pentecost – This phrase is not limited to the “Holy Spirit” but includes those images in the bible of a nonmaterial reality pervading the universe. Today’s scripture readings are based around the events of Pentecost, but in the bible, spirit is used to refer to God’s presence in creation, in the history of Israel, in the life of Jesus and in the early church such as is being highlighted today.

Did you catch what {my spouse} read at the very beginning from Acts about the apostles gathered together in one place? “And suddenly there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting”
The Hebrew word for spirit is Ruach, which also means wind and breath. Wind and breath; both are invisible yet manifestly real. “The sound of the wind filled the entire house where the apostles were sitting.” We cannot see the wind, though its presence and effects are felt; it moves without being seen. When it blows, it is all around us. Breath is like wind inside the body. For the ancient Hebrews breath is associated with life, as it is for us.

I have been practicing Yoga regularly for several years now. Attention to breathing is central to yoga practice. The sun salutation routine synchronizes the breath with a sequence of movements. Yoga is a type of meditation as the body/mind becomes focused through movement and breath.

And you don’t need to practice Yoga to find values in paying attention to your breath. If you are tense or distracted, be come aware of your breath. This attention can provide focus and calm the mind. Although we often picture God speaking to use through dramatic events, we recognize that stillness and quietness provide an opportunity to listen. Paying attention to your breath can be included in your prayer life. We breathe all the time without thinking about it. Focus on your breath but without trying to change it. Notice that life force within. Recognize the spirit that gives you life. Allow an opportunity for the spirit to speak to you.

The spirit of Pentecost – Wind and breath. Within us and all around us.

The Endowment Fund is being highlighted on this day of Pentecost – The Permanent Endowment Fund provides a way of creating a memorial to those who “rest from their labors” and to celebrate the joyous occasions of life with those who are very much still with us. Since 1995, the Endowment Fund has been receiving gifts to benefit the ministries of {this church}. The Endowment Fund was set up to fund special projects with the earnings from the endowment principal. The intent of the fund is to preserve the gifts made to the endowment principal while using the increase to fund items that are outside the regular church budget. The Tree of Life on the back wall of the sanctuary is a visible reminder of the Endowment Fund. But the endowment fund is more than a beautiful display of rocks and leaves in the shape of a tree. Like the wind and breath we have been talking about, the spirit of those honored is within us and all around us. The emphasis in grants from the endowment fund is not on specific physical objects but on working to foster the presence of the spirit in our church life. The most recent grant was for some of the materials used in the recent Lenten classes. The emphasis of the grant is on the movement of the spirit in our congregation through those classes.

The Spirit of Pentecost – As {our pastor} has served this church so well these past years, the love that {our pastor}has for this congregation has always been obvious. He has invited us to be aware of the Spirit of Pentecost. At the first Pentecost, people understood one another: they heard the message of Christ in their own language, despite all their variety. That spirit of Pentecost has stirred in {our pastor} that same boldness that Peter and the other apostles felt that day. Pentecost propelled the message of Jesus to the outside world. It’s when these first Christians really broke free from a rather parochial kind of Jerusalem-centered, fearful, cautious stance. The spirit of Pentecost has brought the message of Jesus forward to this day so we could gather together for this service. In this era of Ipod, instant messaging and music videos, {our pastor} has been open to the spirit speaking to each in their native language just like the first Pentecost. The spirit of Pentecost has moved him to speak in the language of the youth and young people of our congregation with new forms and expressions of faith. The spirit of Pentecost has moved him to speak in the language of those who do not have a church home and are seeking one. The spirit of Pentecost has moved him to boldly proclaim the essentials of the Christian faith with new media, rather than making the seekers find this truth in the midst of what is familiar to us. The Spirit of Pentecost has moved him to assist each of us to find the ability to understand and appreciate one another and unite us in a bond of faith and love. {Pastor}, I thank you for the Spirit of Pentecost you have brought to this congregation.

The spirit of Pentecost – At the day of Pentecost, the early Christians were now able to proclaim salvation as a relationship with God in the present, whose gifts are freedom, joy, peace, and love and whose fruits are compassion and justice. This relationship with God, and all that flows from it, are the purpose of the Christian life. The invitation of the Christian Gospel is to enter into that relationship in which healing and wholeness exist, making our lives here and now, a life with God.
At the first Pentecost, people understood one another: they heard the message of Christ in their own language, despite all their variety. The Spirit made them capable of doing so. We too speak our own languages with the different ways we live our faith. So we ask the Spirit of Pentecost to help us understand and appreciate one another and unite us in a bond of faith and love.

Thank you for this opportunity to share from my faith journey. Happy Pentecost!

Leroy Sievers' Cancer Conversations NPR Morning Edition, May 4, 2007

One of the things I think bothers people sometimes when I say it [is] I'm at peace with this process. I've had a great life. I've traveled the world and all that. I'm not eager to die, I don't want to die, I'm not ready to die. But I'm OK with the process.

Why does that bother people?

Because I think they think it sounds like I'm giving up and I'm not. You deal with death on a daily basis. And it scares you still, but in some ways it loses some of the mystery maybe.

This seemed just like how I would like to able to express myself when the time comes. This ties in with this blog on September 9, 2006

As I read today's newspaper, several news articles seemed to fit together like the opening scenes in a screenplay about a dystopian society. Amidst the anguish of the shootings at Virginia Tech and the Dow reaching a record high, most of these headlines do not need much comment or explanation.

Vatican panel condemns limbo to eternal dustbin: An advisory study, approved by the pope, concludes that unbaptized babies may go to heaven after all. The editor obviously had some fun with the first portion of that headline. What progress! How pathetic! I could not even read the article it seemed so silly and out of touch.

Toxic slag pile adjacent to wetlands is stabilized. I lived near this aluminum and magnesium smelting plant while it was operational 20 years ago. It was already obvious what a mess they had made during the previous 20 years and yet it continued for another 20 years. How could it take so long to stop them? They finally declared bankruptcy as the owners tried to secretly shift money to another company in the southern part of the country.

Alleged saboteur of power grid gained access despite warning. This is the stuff of science fiction. The general public is unaware of how delicate the electrical grid is. Although he crashed computers used to communicate with the power market by pushing an emergency shut-off switch, blackouts and disruptions were avoided since it did not happen during hours of peak demand such as a summer afternoon. "Twenty computer technicians worked for seven hours to restore the system." (Emphasis mine.)

Blackberry maker says software caused blackout. This was not sabotage, just "a minor software upgrade." "Grumbles were heard at the highest levels of business and government, including the White House and the Canadian Parliament." "The failed upgrade apparently set off a domino effect of glitches, which the company referred to as "a compounding series of interaction errors between the system's operational database and cache."" Although we joke about 'Crackberry' Addiction, look at how far reaching the use of this technology is and the impact when it fails.

Google's data-storing features fuels privacy fears. This voluntary Web History service debut came "as privacy advocates continued to raise alarms about the prospect of Google combining its collection of information on individuals with that of DoubleClick, Inc. ...which distributes Web ads and tracks where the majority of people go on the Internet." Google previously purchased Blogspot and so hosts this blog. You are being watched right now.

Is that enough to set the scene? This is not how I see the world or the future. Also newspapers always report the bad news since it is more interesting. I just found it to be a fascinating confluence.

The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan was mentioned by a college friend who is a Lutheran pastor that I don't see very often. The book was mentioned because it had been reviewed in the Christian Century. (It was later reviewed in The Lutheran but I am not a subscriber and haven't read it.) I don't remember the specific comment by my friend but it highlighted the authors view of Jesus and the meaning of holy week. Since it was positive, I took the opportunity to mention how much I enjoy the writing of Marcus Borg. It felt like a coming out to someone who would know what that meant. There was no specific reaction as the dinner meal with our spouses continued. I took comfort in the fact that it did not bring out a negative reaction or word of concern. Here is a quote from the review:

Borg and Crossan say that the Maundy Thursday meal, with its soon-to-be traitors and deserters, is best understood in light of prior meals with misfits and outcasts. This connection between Jesus' life and his death is established by way of a clever pun: the "passion of the Christ," these authors maintain (with obvious reference to the Mel Gibson film), can be understood only in light of what the Christ was passionate about. It was Jesus' passion for the distributive justice of God's rule that brought him to the passion of punitive justice that is definitive of most human civilizations.

The story, however, is not a tragedy. Jesus views his cross as the cost of liberation (that is, as a ransom), and he calls us to follow him, entering a new way of life by dying to an old one. Thus, if Jesus' death is a sacrifice, it is not substitutionary; it requires our participation to become meaningful.

The Last Week is beautifully written and thoroughly engaging, and its authors are well informed. The reflections not only elucidate matters that are potentially difficult to understand but explain the significance of such matters for Christian life. What is at stake, the authors maintain, is an understanding of Christianity as a way of life in this present world as opposed to simply a means for gaining access to a world to come. A biblical understanding of Holy Week views Easter both as testimony to Jesus' continuing presence and as vindication of his claims. With that in mind, the authors close their volume with a virtual altar call, inviting readers to accept this vindicated Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and to accept him as their political Lord and Savior as well.

The italics are in the original.

I like how they reclaim the word sacrifice in a way that makes it even more challenging to each of us. I felt similarly in my early post college years when reading John Howard Yoder especially The Politics of Jesus. These are both the same type of call that one does not usually hear from the mainstream or evangelical churches pulpit. I feel I am renewing my journey along this path after many years of being asleep.

The call for social justice has been somewhat of a habit these past years. Although a passion for social justice grew during my college and early post college years, the active faith underneath faded away and thus the social justice issues lost their root and anchor.

Seane Corn YouthAIDS Blog fascinated me as she described teaching Yoga in India to peer educators for YouthAIDS who are commercial sex workers. While the description may sound like a Monty Python skit, her compassionate account touched my heart as she reaches across this vast cultural divide. The desire by these women to hug her was a beautiful vignette.

I read about spiritual practices and beliefs of these women and Seane. I felt less judgemental than I have in the past. Maybe without realizing it, I tried to dismiss the beliefs of others that were quite different than my own since I was not truly comfortable with my own faith system. Now if someone told me I was going to hell, I would not have the slightest concern that that might be true. Previously I might have to defend my position but I feel totally comfortable. I know there is a loving God but not in the form of some judgemental being. While there might be suffering in the process of some fatal disease or accident, I am confident that the other side is wonderful. I may join the oneness of the cosmos or completely disappear but there is no possibility of any type of Hell. There is enough suffering here in this life.

In both yoga and Buddhism, the ocean of suffering we encounter in life--both our own and that which surrounds us--is seen as a tremendous opportunity to awaken our compassion, or karuna, a Pali word that literally means "a quivering of the heart in response to a being's pain." In Buddhist philosophy, karuna is the second of the four brahmaviharas--the "divine abodes" of friendliness, compassion, gladness, and equanimity that are every human being's true nature.

and

In Buddhist cosmology, the realm of the gods--a mythical world free of death, pain, and loss--is not the best place to become incarnate. It is our human realm, with all of its suffering, that is the ideal place for awakening our hearts.

And when our hearts awaken, even small gestures can have an immense effect. As (Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat) Hanh explains, "One word can give comfort and confidence, destroy doubt, help someone avoid a mistake, reconcile a conflict, or open the door to liberation. One action can save a person's life or help him take advantage of a rare opportunity. One thought can do the same, because thoughts always lead to words and actions. With compassion in our heart, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle." Compassion in Action
Breathe in the world's pain, breathe out love, and let karuna (compassion) blossom in your life.
By Anne Cushman in Yoga Journal

I am not trying to become a Buddhist and I know many Christian writers would agree with the practice and conclusion as stated here. Most of our Christian friends would agree also. Maybe I am trying to discard some of the baggage as I become more fluent about my faith. Looking at another religion, I'm getting a fresh perspective on my faith.

First Love, Then Action (1/9/2004) Catherine Ingram - the last post was about my discovery of dharma dialogues by Catherine Ingram. I feel a little bit like I have been on retreat this weekend as I listened to these talks several times. This is the type of inspiring talk I have experienced in the past and felt like it was a good experience. I am often a slow learner and sometimes I will take away one idea from a retreat. I am hungry as I haven't been to one in quite awhile. I used to count on La Casa de Maria to have some really inspiring people lead retreats but several years ago, those programs ended at least in the quantity they were having them before.

Interestingly enough, I was not very inspired in preparing for the Lenten Study. The texts did not excite me nor did the questions in the study book. I gathered some materials and we had a fine session. After listening to Catherine Ingram, it was hard for me to form a study around traditional Christian beliefs. I think Jesus is great, I just can't figure out the part about God sending everyone to hell if they don't believe in Jesus.

Coexisting Awareness - I discovered dharma dialogues with Catherine Ingram and listened to the hour session entitled Coexisting Awareness. After a short talk, she answered questions. Her wisdom reminds me of some folks in the past that I have heard and felt a real sense of truth in what they say (Rev. Clarence Lui is one). I see in myself what she calls the mystical impulse. She talks about how everyone will realize it at some point. Sickness or tragedy may be the trigger; she quotes another dharma teacher, "they all end up with us."

The mystical impulse is just the feeling that there "is something else." There is a celebration of the sacred where we don't try to improve ourselves, just be. A celebration of ourselves in awakened awareness in which we are not trying to get anywhere. And when we stop trying to improve ourselves, we stop trying to improve others. We read sacred texts to be reminded of what we already know. Doing nothing becomes the biggest laugh as we realize the folly of our search.

This feels so right compared to the "Believe in Jesus and you'll go to heaven." I want to reread Christian authors such as Thomas Merton and Daniel Berrigan to see how my current views fit into these writings that I found so valuable and inspiring.

An interesting post on Internetmonk.com by Michael Spencer Marcus Borg: Attempting Faith Between “Either” and “Or”

Primarily, however, I am fascinated by Borg’s journey from orthodox Lutheran Christian to one who rejects the standard orthodox meanings of much of the Christian story, yet remains in the church. Borg is never a ranting, carping scholar looking down his nose at fundamentalists. He calmly recites his loss of one kind of faith as the birth of another kind. In the process, he seldom does more than say “I simply could no longer believe the orthodox version of the story.”

Borg believes that he represents millions of people who will never be able to believe what orthodox Christians routinely believe. For him, everything in the New Testament is a metaphor of the New Age, scholarly heralded message of a God who does not discriminate on versions of truth, is immediately available to all, and who is mostly concerned with a social and political renewal familiar to anyone who listens to NPR.

Borg’s version of Christianity is, in its way, rather compelling and attractive in this contentious day and age of postmodern Christianity. He is a Don Quixote to a world of evangelical Apologists and outspoken defenders of the faith. He can still say the Apostle’s Creed, sing the great hymns, worship in the ancient Christian liturgy…all without pangs of conscience, and all the time meaning almost nothing that traditional Christian believers mean when they say or sing these same things.

Borg, and many other scholars and writers like him, believe they are saving the Christian faith from a kind of fundamentalism that will most certainly doom it to irrelevance in coming generations. They perceive, I believe correctly, that fundamentalism’s popularity is a house of cards, ready to collapse. Evangelical sociologists have been telling us this for years in surveys about the particular and general beliefs of the people who call themselves “Christians.”

The line that most resonated is Marcus Borg seldom does more than say, "I simply could no longer believe the orthodox version of the story." That sounds like why I find meaning in Marcus Borg's writing.

Reconciling my Faith with Scholarly Findings

I seem to have a new readiness and comfort level in reconciling my faith with scholarly findings that I have been aware of since my college days. As I read and think about what makes sense to me, I am finding a real excitement, hunger, and joy. As I have been preparing for the Lenten Study though, I wanted something to have something to look at that made sense to me already. I didn't want to present something that I didn't believe but I didn't want to shake them up as that was not what they signed up for. It has been helpful to have printed out a cheat sheet of excerpts from Marcus Borg's article, Me & Jesus - the Journey Home. The Lenten book and facilitator's materials are excellent and having Borg's article helped me feel I would to be able to lead the discussion without feeling conflicted within myself. I didn't want them to have to be where I am to find value in the class. I also figured this Adult Sunday School class would be somewhat like the "average churchgoer" Lloyd Geering describes in this article How Did Jesus Become God — and Why.

Indeed one suspects that if one were to ask the average churchgoer to spell out what they meant by saying that Jesus is divine, they would probably align themselves, without realizing it, with one of the ancient heresies, rather than with orthodoxy.

but I knew none of them were ready for learning that:

The time was overdue for the process of deconstructing the affirmation of Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God. . . . Most recently the process of deconstructing the glorification of Jesus and of recovering the historical human figure behind the process has been undertaken by the Jesus Seminar.

I was especially interested in resources on the resurrection story but appreciated going back to basics such as with this first excerpt from the Marcus Borg article:

I realized that the image of Jesus from my childhood—the popular image of Jesus as the divine savior who knew himself to be the Son of God and who offered up his life for the sins of the world—was not historically true. Moreover, I learned that scholars had been saying this for almost two hundred years.

As I am rereading the entire article as I write this, I also found this:

By the end of childhood, the ingredients of what I now call "the popular image of Jesus" were in place. I saw Jesus as the divinely begotten Son of God who died for the sins of the world, whose message was about himself, his saving purpose, and the importance of believing in him. John 3.16, that verse memorized as a preschooler, expressed it perfectly. "Believe in Jesus and you'll go to heaven" was my childhood understanding of the Christian gospel.

The Lenten Class is going very well. I was concerned when I first agreed but I have become comfortable with the material than my first reaction. So far I have not been uncomfortable with answering any questions. The class has consisted of reading the lectionary passages and discussing questions suggested by the materials. There has not really been dialogue or questions for me; mostly folks are sharing there own experiences. At one point I shared how I did not think Jesus wanted to be crucified but rather he could not stop teaching and healing in a way that challenged both the religious and secular authorities. As I was saying it, I realized that someone earlier had said something about Jesus wanting to fulfill the prophesies and die for our sins. At that time, I had not commented but just gone on. Often I would follow-up with some folks to draw them out a bit or to relate a confirming or complementary comment. I let that one drop because it reminded me of how Marcus Borg describes that type of faith.

My spouse has had good things to say about the way I have been leading the class.

New name Afflatus

I keep changing the name of the blog, my previous choice was Gambolde from Medieval French gambade, "a leaping or skipping,"

I get my ideas from
Dictionary.com Word of the Day

Now I want to change it to
afflatus \uh-FLAY-tuhs\, noun:
A divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.

I like the humor in most people are familiar with the last word in the list of words with the same root meaning as this word.

Afflatus is from Latin afflatus, past participle of afflare,
"to blow at or breathe on," from ad-, "at" + flare, "to puff,
to blow." Other words with the same root include deflate (de-,
"out of" + flare); inflate (in-, "into" + flare); soufflé, the
"puffed up" dish (from French souffler, "to puff," from Latin
sufflare, "to blow from below," hence "to blow up, to puff
up," from sub-, "below" + flare); and flatulent.

The Nicene Creed (written 325 C.E.) is the indiginization of early Christian beliefs into the Hellenistic thought of the early 4th century and crystallization of thought of a particular time and place.

Trinitarian language says God is one known to us:

* as God the creator
* in the person of Jesus
* in the presence of the spirit

The emergence of Jesus Christ in Christian tradition amounts to a cumulative claim.

For Marcus Borg, as a scholar and as a Christian, Jesus is an epiphany of God, a manifestation of the sacred, the decisive disclosure of God.

From "A Portrait of Jesus" created by Cam Howard based on the work of Dr. Marcus Borg.

I found this website quite interesting since I haven't gotten around to rereading and reading the books by Marcus Borg. I like the conclusion:

Spirit, compassion, and the quest for justice are at the center of a Christian life that takes this portrait of Jesus seriously.

I think I have been bothered lately with those professing a Christianity that puts certain things at the center of a Christian Life that end up being more like the rule-bound Pharasees than what Jesus taught.

I don't want to be flippant about my faith or the faith of others in this blog. I have been writing about feeling a release; a new excitement about my faith. Maybe what is new is the freedom to no longer hang onto some of the basic doctrines of Christianity that are clearly not plausible to me anymore. I am feeling freed from hanging on to these teachings that I don't think I ever accepted. I still remember my reaction and that of many in the crowd when Bishop Spong exclaimed, "Jesus did not die for my sins!" There was such a release in hearing him publicly and proudly proclaim a faith view that I dare not say since it is considered heresy. It certainly engendered a new freedom in me.

It is getting close to a year since I started this blog last March. I initially just wanted to bookmark and comment on items that were attracting my attention. Then within a month, I went to the talk by Bishop Spong mentioned above. At some point, I decided to write my spiritual autobiography and started using the profile to do that. I haven't gotten back to it though I had made a list of significant influences on me that I seemed to have misplaced. Maybe I will change the profile to such a list and comment on their significance in the blog.

I also do not want to make this blog a criticism of others. There are two aspects to that. I am discussing it here because I am not sure who is ready to talk about this stuff. I do not want to be critical of where they are at. Secondly, there is a huge urge to be critical of the Christian Right. Much of what their leaders do has nothing to do with faith. They are trying to promote a political agenda and find manipulating believers as a handy tool. Many of them have to keep the excitement up to keep bringing in the money. This article is an example of the things that scare me about the Religious Right.

If for his life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied" 1st Corinthians 15:19

What an awful verse! I have begun preparing for the Lenten Study and the materials mostly present some good verses and topics to discuss. I happened to notice this verse in the last chapter of the study quide. This is a some of Paul's reasoning that I have never been comfortable with. The study author talks about his father's life and how he "died too young" at 65. After saying how most people are forgotten and the world moves on after they are dead, he says "What a bleak and empty view of life..." The study author then tries to convince us that it might be OK to live selfishly since "no one remembers us." "If death is the final answer, why live a faithful life?" After presenting us with this, he offers an alternative using the standard claims of what we have gained from Christ's resurrection.

This is a perfect example of the theology that has never worked for me. I was taught duing my high school years to witness with the four spiritual laws but always found it odd that one had to first convince people what bad shape they were in and then tell them you have a incantation that will fix that suppossed empty feeling.

This worldview seems unable to meet people where they are at. For the author, life appears to be meaningless and empty unless there is a heaven. Does life only have meaning if we live on? Is that really true for this author and is that a necessary part of Christian theology? If so the they "are of all people most to be pitied"

In Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Pagels wrestles with her own faith as she struggles to understand when--and why--Christianity became associated almost exclusively with the Trinitarian doctrine of the fourth-century Nicene Creed. In her exploration, she uncovers the richness and diversity of early Christianity. At the center of her book is an early Christian document, The Gospel of Thomas (rediscovered in Egypt in 1945); it reflects the view that Jesus is not God but, rather, a teacher who seeks to uncover the divine light in all human beings. But its "secret teachings" were driven underground by early church fathers, emerging once again in the work of Pagels and other contemporary scholars. As Pagels argues, the rediscovery of documents like the Gospel of Thomas may transform our understanding not only of early Christianity, but of the Christian faith itself. GodWeb: Finding God on the Web

I looked up this review after reading Continued discovery within 'secret gospels' By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer, in the January 20, 2007 LA Times. I liked Elaine Pagels answers to questions that seem designed to stir up a bit of controversy. I had never looked into anything about the "lost gospels" because they were not part of the canon and it seemed (at least in the '70s) that folks were interested just to be rebellious. As Elaine says, "We were told they were bizarre, heretical, nonsensical, full of philosophical fantasies and religious junk." My views have changed as I have read about them and became convinced that "the richness and diversity of early Christianity" has been suppressed. Like Pagels though, I feel they are not the answer but just a part of the mystery of faith. She says, "Essentially, they were trying to make a distinction between anthropomorphic notions of God and the divine reality." Sounds like what Bishop Spong is saying. I would like to read this book one of these days when I have the opportunity. I had not realized till I did a search that she had written this article I quoted on The Truth at the Heart of 'The Da Vinci Code'.

In my journal today, I described many of the traditional Christian tenets as facades with supports behind holding them up. I imagine a television set or a set for a play. The supports have been removed and the false walls have fallen outward. I still have my central beliefs but the barriers have been removed. Like the young person in my last blog entry, I have not rejected my faith but I don't find it necessary to say everyone else is wrong. In fact I find much of value in these other faiths.

I am not a subscriber to Bishop Spong's newsletter but I am on the mailing list for occasional samples. He is helpful in reminding me that it is OK to remain with a mainline church denomination. I don't believe Jesus died for my sins but I have agreed to lead a group using a published lenten study. It will be a time for me to look at some central beliefs and see what I can find. Hopefully I won't have to tell them much about the current episode in my spiritual journey; I don't think this is the time or place to "come out." At some time I will have to have a talk with the Pastor. I can contribute to the classes but maybe there should be some discernment. I don't want to cause problems for the Pastor. It does show though that we have never had a deep conversation where I could tell him where I am at spiritually. We have talked a lot about where our congregation is at and he assumes my beliefs are fairly mainstream.

Experiencing Other Faiths to Find One's Own, by Judy Woodruff
I found this interview fascinating. There may be feelings of jealousy in me since not only did she have an amazing journey but she seems to have a rich church life to come back to. I has a similar desire when I was that age but my journey was not quite as rich. There was some great things but as they say, "Mistakes were made."

I would like to go on a this kind of journey or exploration now. I will see how that can happen. The journey can be metaphorical; I don't have to actually travel to distant lands. I will also see what my spouse is interested in.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF SEEING NATURE IN L.A. by JENNY PRICE, The Believer magazine. I started reading this article after seeing a piece in GRIST adapted from it. I like what she has to say.