I’ve posted about T.M. Luhrmann’s work before. I find her fascinating.
This is re-posted from the NY Times:
We often imagine prayer as a practice that affects the content of what we think about — our moral aspirations, or our contrition. It’s probably more accurate to understand prayer as a skill that changes how we use our minds.
Spot. On.
Reblogged from Alise…Write!
Today I’m standing with my atheist writing friends and saying that questions and criticisms should be allowed, even of things that I hold dear. And while this may not do much to help those who have been imprisoned for those questions or criticisms, it may begin to blur some of the battle lines that are drawn between our communities.
Rachel Held Evans once again offers the kind of all-around challenging and insightful commentary for which she is becoming famous. I’m not necessarily on the same page with RHE on everything, but her words are well-worth considering. As always, commentary and responses are welcome.
Reblogged from Rachel Held Evans:
I think a lot of progressive Christians like myself, eager to distance ourselves from some of the rhetoric and policies of the Republican brand of the pro-life movement, shy away from talking about abortion, when our call to do justice and love mercy demand that we speak and act to address this issue, even though it may be more complicated than we originally thought.
I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of the philosophers — Connecticut gave him to the world — he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will come to him for advice.
“How blind that cannot see serenity!”
A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith making plain the image engraven in men’s bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the thought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world’s highway, where philosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed, “Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.” He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.
–Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Chapter 14
Have you ever look at a dog and really seen it in its total “dogness”? A dog is quite miraculous when you really see it…
Never mind dogs. What about a bird, or a cat, or a tree, or a flower, or a rhinoceros?! They are all quite miraculous really. When you really look at one, you can hardly believe it exists; there it is, this perfect thing, just being what it is, complete in itself. Any imaginative child could have dreamed up a rhinoceros, or an elephant, or a giraffe. But they didn’t get here as the product of a child’s imagination. The universe is spinning these dreams. They come out of the universe, as do we.
–Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, p. 153-154
I have been reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden lately.
Chapter 5, Solitude, has been my favorite so far.
Here are some excerpts:
THIS IS A delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature’s watchmen — links which connect the days of animated life…
…Men frequently say to me, “I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially.” I am tempted to reply to such — This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction…
…Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.
“How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven and of Earth!”
“We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them, and we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they cannot be separated from them.”
“They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right; they environ us on all sides.”…
…The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature — of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter — such health, such cheer, they afford forever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the sun’s brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?
Re-post from NBC News:
“I just want people to know that there are American Muslim women who wear hijab by choice because they believe in it and it feels right to them, not because anyone tells them to.”
-Lauren Schreiber, 26, Muslim Convert
Reading Jesus as a coyote who brings us into God’s reign against the law at no charge, or presenting baptism as making us all equally “wetback” strangers and aliens, are understandings coming directly out of years of working with undocumented immigrants struggling with the constant reality of possible deportation…
Reading Paul with undocumented immigrants, inmates, and “criminal aliens” cam clearly bring new life to worn-out texts. Reading these Scripture passages in a way that holds onto the radical grace that infuses them requires faith and risk. Though I am fully aware of other texts that emphasize the importance of being subject to governing authorities (Rom. 13:1-7) and of walking by the Spirit and not by the flesh (Gal. 5:16-26), I do not believe that people always need to be presented with the “whole picture.” Most people on society’s margins assume the Scriptures are only about lists of dos and don’ts and calls to compliance. Reading with people whose social standing, family of origin, addictions, criminal history, and other factors make compliance with civil laws or scriptural teachings impossible requires a deliberate reading for and acting by grace. The good news alone must be seized by faith as having the power to save, heal, deliver, and liberate. This good news is no one other than Jesus Christ himself, who meets us through the words of Scripture and the sacraments, and through the flesh of his family of buen coyote followers.
–Rev. Dr. Bob Ekblad, Reading the Bible With the Damned, p. 179-180, 195-196
By coming to understand ourselves as social beings, liberals may come to see forms of participation such as social justice work not simply as a choice we make (or do not make) as individuals but as a fundamental factor in the formation of our own identities. In other words, we must think of social justice work not simply as something we do, but as part of who we are. If I cannot see myself in solidarity with others whose circumstances are different from my own, then something is missing from my own identity. My sense of self is incomplete. In this self-help oriented culture, we often feel the need to attend to our own well-being before we can reach out to someone else. But the idea of participation can remind us that our own well-being is deeply connected to the well-being of others and that we can be healed only when there is healing, and justice, for others as well.
–Rev. Dr. Paul Rasor, Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century, p. 104
It is the soul searching for its counterpart.
It is a thirsty land crying out for rain.
It is a candle in the act of being kindled.
It is a drop in quest of the ocean.
It is a person listening through a tornado for the Still Small Voice.
It is the voice in the night calling for help.
It is a sheep lost in the wilderness pleading for rescue by the Good Shepherd.
It is the same sheep nestling in the arms of the Rescuer.
It is the Prodigal Son running to his Father.
It is a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the Universe.
It is a poet enthralled by the beauty of a sunrise.
It is a worker pausing a moment to listen to a strain of music.
It is a hungry heart seeking for love.
It is Time flowing into Eternity.
It is my little self engulfed in the Universal Self.
It is a person climbing the altar stairs to God.
The one who neglects worship, neglects that which separates us from the birds, the animals, the insects, and the fishes.
The unworshipful human is an anthropoid equipped with a highly developed brain.
She may be a paragon of morality, but so are bees and ants.
She may be keenly intelligent, but so are wolves and foxes.
She may provide for her family, but so do hyenas and orangutans.
She may be successful in affairs, but so are beavers and muskrats.
She may be artistic, but so are birds and butterflies.
Worship is the chief concern of highly developed human beings.
Human beings must be graded according to their capacity for Worship.
Worship for people is what song is for a thrush or physical beauty for a tiger or speed for a race horse.
Worship lifts people to their next level of experience and justifies their existence as people.
Worship is a Person expressing his or her entire personality.
To neglect Worship is to accept a low rating as a person.
To neglect Worship is to fail in life’s highest function.
The neglect of Worship is psychical suicide.
Ignorant Worship is better than intelligent non-worship.
Intelligent Worship is the most remarkable achievement of which a human being is capable.
The primary function of a church is to supply an incentive to Worship, and to furnish an atmosphere for Worship.
If one cannot Worship in Church, the Church may be at fault, or the person may be at fault.
If the Church is at fault it will eventually perish unless it remedies the condition.
If the person is at fault, she will dry up and become a spiritual mummy, unless she changes herself.
Adapted from Dwight Bradley in the Inter-Church Hymnal, published in 1946.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 