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Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (conclusion)
Today, we conclude this lesson on the ancient exercises we do together on Sundays. We look at the exercise that includes stilling our hearts, becoming attentive, interpreting, and discerning.
This may be one of the only times you’ll ever hear a minister tell you to argue with him or her. Continue reading
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 4)
We continue looking at the Sunday exercises, thinking about these ancient spiritual exercises.
Today, we think about the exercise of invoking in one another, sensitivity to Spirit. Continue reading
Posted in Don't Waste Your Time Going to Church
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, church, invocation
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Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 3)
We’re looking at the exercises we’ve been doing together on Sundays for centuries and centuries. As anything we do for an extend period, they can become rote, and we can begin to practice them without understanding or without a vested interest.
So we’re thinking together about the ancient practices, the ancient spiritual exercises.
Today, we think about the radicalized version of hospitality practiced in the first few centuries of the church, and how it served as political and social dissent against the norms of Roman society. Continue reading
Longings for God
by Robin Camu What Do We Really Want? The deepest longing of the human heart is to connect with God. Yet, many of us go through lives unconscious of this fact. When we feel the yearning for Divine companionship, we … Continue reading
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 2)
Today, we begin looking at the exercises that in aggregate, constitute the Sunday morning Christian experience. Looking at the word “liturgy,” we realize that what we’re doing is closer to going to a gym-for-the-soul, than it is to many of our understandings of “going to church.”
So have a listen. Today we talk about two exercises Christian people have been doing Sunday mornings for centuries; getting ready, and getting there (there’s more to it than you would think). Continue reading
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 1)
Notice, I did not title this lesson; ”Don’t go to church. It’s a waste of time.”
No, a better title would have been, “When you go to church, don’t waste your time.” (But it’s not nearly as catchy, is it?)
The exercises many Christians do on Sunday mornings have an ancient heritage. They wouldn’t have lasted this long if they didn’t have a profound power to transform us. However, many people find organized religion and Sunday services in particular, to be decidedly un-transformative.
So, in this lesson, we’ll look at the ancient communal practices we Christians do on Sunday mornings, and see if we can’t find the life and vitality that has been in them all these years. Continue reading
Easter 2010
Any minister worth his or her salt, works very hard preparing the Easter message. But me?? I’m doing a version of last year’s Easter message. What kind of sloppy work is that?
Here’s what happened…
I was reading through a bunch of things I’d gathered through the year for the Easter message. One of the things I read over was last year’s message.
It moved me deeply. I thought to myself; “I said that last year? Wow! That’s good stuff. And I didn’t remember saying that at all.”
Looking at the materials I’d gathered, I couldn’t imagine preparing a better message this year from scratch.
So here it is, Easter 2010, a variation of Easter 2009. Continue reading
The Spirituality of How We Think About God (2)
Today, we conclude this short, 2-week lesson looking at how we think about God. Our “God-as-Person” metaphor, we see, limits our spirituality. We’re looking at a more expansive spirituality available to us when transcend our historical tendency to explain God with too much precision.
As we dismantle our images of God, reform them, in the process, we awaken to a new dimension of spiritual experience. Continue reading
Posted in Individual Lesson
Tagged awe, Creation, Image of God, immanence/transcendence, Incomprehensibility of God
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The Spirituality of How We Think About God (1)
Today, we begin a short lesson together (only two weeks) in which we look at what comes to our minds when we use the word “God.” Usually, it’s a super-big-and-wonderful Person, a King, a Parent, a Bridegroom, a Righteous Judge. These are all metaphors for God found in the Bible that have found their way into the unconscious assumptions of many of us.
However, an interesting thing happens when we frame an image of God in our mind. We limit our experience of the Beyond-Our-Faculties-To-Comprehend, Divine to that which fits into our fixed mental image. Continue reading
Posted in Individual Lesson
Tagged contemplation, humility, Image of God, immanence/transcendence, Mystery, paradox
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Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 4)
We conclude looking at the art of confession with this lesson on two themes…
1. what is penance, and what is it’s value to our souls?
2. how do we receive a confession well? Continue reading
Posted in Friends for the Fray
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, community, confession, penance, spiritual friends
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