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Spirituality/Interspirituality

Spiritual Exploring with Kids

Spiritual Exploring with Kids

by Vicki Garlock

Kids love to explore. And a quick look at any summer camp guide will support that claim. Last summer, kids in our area could attend Camp Explorer, Camp Eco-Explorer, Camp Adventure, Camp Discovery, Camp Run Wild, Camp Invention, or Nature Adventures, to name just a few!

Teilhard de Chardin – Envisioning a Unitive Evolution

Teilhard de Chardin – Envisioning a Unitive Evolution

by Marcus Braybrooke

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-55), a distinguished paleontologist, theologian, and visionary, held a unitive vision that covered a wide canvas. He tried through his writings to bring the worlds of science and religion together, believing their combined insights held the key to creating a greater sense of global community. 

Seizing an Alternative

Seizing an Alternative

by Philip Clayton

This is the story of the interfaith movement and climate change. It is also the story of a scholar of science and religion who gradually realizes that global climate change is the most urgent threat that humanity faces.Rampant poverty, social inequalities, the unjust treatment of the global South, each of these is magnified ten or a hundred fold by climate disruption.

Sri Aurobindo: Proposing an Integral Evolution

Sri Aurobindo: Proposing an Integral Evolution

by Marcus Braybrooke

During times of violence and war, it can seem like humanity is on a downward slide. And yet there are those who look past the present state and envision something greater emerging. Such is the case with Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950).

Humankind and Contemplation

Humankind and Contemplation

by Jeff Genung

From the moment a frustrated Neanderthal said to herself, “How am I supposed to cut this meat without a knife?” to the day Gutenberg’s boss blurted “I need thirty copies of this document by noon,” our species has been creating tools that transform life as we know it.

Stuck on the Spiritual Spectrum

Stuck on the Spiritual Spectrum

by Philip Goldberg

A dispute at a small evangelical college; the death of a Supreme Court Justice; the presidential election campaign – these and other recent events remind me, yet again, that our religious attitudes and spiritual orientations are almost infinitely diverse. Not only are there vast differences among adherents of every tradition, but also diversity within the diversity within the diversity.

Interspiritual Perspectives on Wisdom

Interspiritual Perspectives on Wisdom

by Dr. Ed Bastian

Generally speaking, the word wisdom often connotes a holistic knowingness harvested from the totality of one’s life experience, including knowledge gained through intellectual conceptualization and empirical observation. From a spiritual perspective however, Wisdom (note the capital “W”) is generally said to be the result of a transcendent insight that surpasses, informs, and then guides our everyday thoughts, perceptions, and mental projections of reality.

Following the Path of Transformation

Following the Path of Transformation

by Weston Pew

On my path over this past year my work for The Sacred Door Trail has taken me to the melting glaciers of Greenland where gigantic ice walls fall into rivers every 20 minutes, shaking ground and bone as a warning call of the coming rising seas.

Opening the Door to Zen in Church

Opening the Door to Zen in Church

by Deborah Streeter

“In the past, models of being church have been based on belief. We are exploring a new model of church, built on spiritual discovery and transformation of life. The question no longer is, ‘What do you believe?’ but ‘How has your life been transformed?’”

Becoming Intimate with Your Life

Becoming Intimate with Your Life

by David Parks-Ramage

Following his baptism in the Jordan River and his time in the wilderness Jesus emerges into his ministry. His first words? “The time is come. The Realm of God is near.” You can almost feel it in Jesus’ words, finding fulfillment in your hearing. It is here. Now. Present. There is nowhere to look, no far off and away to get to. God is present here, in life. That is the good news.

Don’t Forget the Mystics

The recent Parliament of World Religions in Salt Lake City has been called the “123rd birthday of the international interfaith movement,” which is often said to have had its origin at the Chicago Parliament in 1893. It was a time to celebrate the global growth of the movement and its growing maturity. The emphasis was no longer on the need to talk to each other but on what we should be doing together.

The Christmas Narrative Revisited

The Christmas Narrative Revisited

by Isabella Price

On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth with joyful carols, special liturgies, festive meals and gifts…Yet, what are the origins of Christmas and how…

Bidi-Smoking Muslims and Miracles

During a trip to India in the summer of 2001, my mother made a pilgrimage with her cousin to the city of Shirdi, home to the shrine of Shirdi Sai Baba (1835-1918), a holy figure revered by both Hindus and Muslims.

Cosmic Andogyny

The best known Androgyne figures in all of Africa were carved by the Dogon in Mali. This excellent example is filled with male/female symbolism.

Bronze Head of Buddha

The flame rising from the top of the head represents the transcendent light of true wisdom. Sometimes called the Lotus Blossom Flame, this dynamic ushnisha was continued in Thai art for centuries. The traditional teaching is that the rise to Buddha-Consciousness involves raising awareness from its lowest levels to its highest levels.

An Education Centered on Wisdom

We should be afraid when people start measuring education by its functional value. I tremble a little when I read about the need for “21st century skills” or the increasing necessity of a college degree for achieving middle class status. I feel anxious because I work with children every day, and they never seem very concerned about whether they are becoming “competitive in the global marketplace.” (If they ever do start showing concern, it may be my signal to find a new career.)

Is a World Faith Worth Dreaming About?

“A gradual assimilation of religions will in time function as a world faith” was the prophecy that the Indian philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan made more than 80 years ago.

Struggling to Keep the Cosmovisión Alive

Every town, every culture has a concept of reality which accords with their life experience. The Aztecs, Mayan and Incas, peoples indigenous to Central and South America, created their own cosmovisión, as a way of conceiving the universe.

Review: Spiritual Guidance across Religions

As a health care chaplain for 15 years and now director of a large and wonderfully diverse health system chaplaincy department, I was delighted to be asked to review Spiritual Guidance Across Religions: A Sourcebook for Spiritual Directors and Other Professionals Providing Counsel to People of Differing Faith Traditions (2014). The book is a 400-page tome edited by John Mabry, who invited 23 highly qualified practitioners of spiritual care from different religious, spiritual traditions to contribute.

Required Reading for Interspirituality 101

When Swami Vivekananda spoke to the opening plenary of the first World’s Parliament of Religions on September 11, 1893, he quoted lines from an ancient Hindu spiritual hymn:

As the different streams having there sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to thee.