According to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary which has a branch in Charlotte, in 2008 there were 39,000 Christian denominations in the world with a new denomination forming every 12 hours. In 1800 there were 500 Christian denominations.[1] To me this is an astounding number. If someone had said that there were 500 today, I’d have been […]

Spirituality can be like going down a fairly straight ladder with your back to the rungs, or like facing the rungs and holding on as you descend. Spirituality, being led by the Spirit of God, and religion, a set of beliefs, rituals and a community drawn together by its commonality, form a continuum that depicts […]

Now in the second decade of the 21st Century we couldn’t be more connected to other people than we are today with our instant messaging, cell phones, Skype, WiFi network connections, computers, pda’s and more, but we’ve rarely been so cloistered in our own little existence. We have a more intimate connection to these props […]

If our journeys are mythic, as I proposed last week, then our lives loom larger than we realize. Implicit in our creation is the contribution that we are to make to all of life, if we will live our life fully and express our voice in the world. Just being a visitor in life is […]

Myths & fairy tales–these are not valued in our post-modern world; they are for children, we adults like the facts, real stories. We no longer believe in Cinderella, Snow White or any of the Greek or Roman myths. We are thinking people, rational, not guided by larger than life stories. We live in the real […]

I’ve been drinking in the ideas in Brother David Steindl-Rast’s book gratefulness, the heart of prayer, reading and then rereading parts of it. I don’t know when I have been so moved and influenced by a book. I feel like the soil in my mind is being plowed under in order to incorporate his ideas. […]

In the language of computers the computer always returns to the default settings, the embedded code which guides the computer’s actions.  Lately I have been thinking that the phrase applies equally well to human beings. Does each of us have a “default” position that we return to when things are difficult, tentative, or unsettled in […]

Seldom do we realize this as we live our lives: we have the cosmos within us! We are limitless beings in rather limited bodies, but we contain all life, just as all life contains us. We are s-s-o-o-u-u-l-l, soul an intimate part of everything, connected on all levels to the essence of life. We can […]

I am still thinking about repentance and religion, but this week I am seeing it from a different angle.  To see God at work in this world, we have to look for higher consciousness and love at work, but to do that we have see the world in a totally new way. Instead of seeing […]

The words, repentance and religion, have been turning over in my mind this week, since our Bible study, Bible Workbench, focused on a reading from Isaiah 1. He called the Israelites, and now us, to change our ways. What were they talking about?  Repent means to deeply regret what we’ve done, but it does not […]