Doug

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At first glance, making peace doesn’t appear to be a discipline for training one’s soul…

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Today we lay a foundation for a series of lessons about tending the gardens of our souls. To become the kind of people other people want to be around, indeed the kind of people we ourselves want to be around, requires attentiveness to spiritual growth. In this lesson we look at why this is so, and suggest a motivation for being diligent in following the ancient spiritual paths.

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We continue thinking about the spiriutality that is built on the foundation we’ve been looking at for many weeks.  In those lessons we did some rethinking of the  unquestioned assumptions that often goes into the doctrines of our faith.

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For many weeks, we’ve been thinking about the theology of our faith, and how our unquestioned assumptions, and the things taught us often betray us and lead us into a sickened spiritual state.  Today we begin to look at how rebuild a healthy spirituality on the foundations of these reconsidered Truths.

St. Francis: Canticle of the Sun

by Doug Hammack

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In this lesson, we conclude our look at two views of people.  We see that the common view of ourselves as foreigners on the earth, waiting to go to heaven to find our heart’s true home tends to make for a version of Christianity less engaged with the teachings of Jesus.  The view that we and the earth are being redeemed, and that we are co-travelers on the journey toward God’s purpose…

• this makes for a version of Christianity that better cares for the earth, better watches over it, and in general,  makes us better citizens of the planet.
• Have a listen to this conclusion of the last three lessons.

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There is an old-time hymn titled, “This World is Not My Home.” The sentiment behind the hymn, and behind a common Christian view of humanity, is that we (ie the followers of Jesus) are resident aliens on this earth. We’re just waiting to get snatched away to our true home in heaven.

In this message we examine the problems with this view of things. If we’re resident aliens on the earth, it’s proving pretty difficult for us to be very good citizens here.

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We’re doing a series of lessons called “Two Views.” The last lesson we looked at Two Views of God. This week, and for the next couple of weeks, we’ll look at Two Views of People, and after that, Two Views of Jesus.

In these introductory remarks before we begin our second installment, we talk about why we’d poke people’s settled religious views in the eye. Why irritate people over settled religious convictions? The reason is expediency. Our Christian spirituality has grown quite ill over the last few generations, and unless we go back and question our fundamental assumptions about following Jesus, we may never discern where we went wrong.

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In 2009, NRCC is embarking on a one-year experiment in integrating the ancient Christian contemplative practices into our lives. This “Meditation Practicum” will be three 11-week sessions of learning, practicing, and supporting one another. Today’s message gives some introductory practicum to our experiment. It’s worth a listen even if you’re not at NRCC.