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I love it! I have been getting ready to write a serious post on intercessory prayer - of course I am planning to write it from the viewpoint of what I am calling a Mystic on this site. Earlier today however, I ran across a blog post from one of my favorite Mystics ever - Rabbi Rami Shapiro - who writes a column for Spirituality and Health Magazine. His blog post really sets up Read the rest of this entry »
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Ok, now I’ve heard it all! I subscribe to Worldwide Religion News, a sort of newsletter that sends regular updates about religion issues in the news all over the world (as the title would suggest, of course…)
Anyway this evening there was an article from New Delhi questioning whether yoga is ok for Christians to do - because it may be too close to its Hindu roots. To most of us, yoga is a healthy exercise and I don’t think any of us in this country at least would view yoga as having anything to do with religion. Even if it did, what would be wrong Read the rest of this entry »
I just listened to a dialogue between Ken Wilber and Brother David Steindl-Rast. They were talking about what Wilber calls the three faces of God. To me, this is an interesting concept. So far as I know, it is something Wilber developed himself.
I am going to try and paraphrase the idea for you here but if you really want to hear it Read the rest of this entry »
In the last post, I wrote about Lon Solomon, pastor of the McLean Bible Church, a 10,000 member non-denominational mega-church in my area. The type of preaching he does, on the radio no less, is typical of the Faithful or Stage Two religion. It happens that on one of his several websites, we find his conversion story, as told my him. You can listen to it in the original if you want, but it is sixty minutes long: http://www.mcleanbible.org/media_player.asp?messageID=961. He is an amusing speaker so if you have the time, do click on that link.
Anyway, Lon grew up in a Jewish household where they went through the motions of following the Read the rest of this entry »
Tonight while I was driving home a familiar voice came on the radio. It was the Reverend Lon Solomon, pastor of the McLean Bible Church. He regularly does radio spots with short bits of preaching and always ends his coments with the words: “Not a Sermon…Just a thought!” Very catchy, right?
Well here is what he had to say tonight: ”…..The Bible says that God Read the rest of this entry »
I thought this was something my readers might find interesting. I certainly did. I am in Florida, visiting my parents for a few days and on the plane I was reading my new issue of WIE (What Is Enlightenment) magazine. (I know, the title is a little bit arrogant but there is some interesting stuff in it.) Anyway, one of the first few articles in this issue was devoted to the work of two researchers - Paul Ray and Jim Garrison. It seems Paul Ray was the first person to coin the term “cultural creatives” in his 2000 book, The Cultural Creatives:How 50 Million People Are Changing the World.
So what is a cultural creative? According to a website related to the work of Garrison and Ray: Cultural Creatives are essentially comprised of people who have participated in the social and consciousness movements that have emerged since World War II: the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the women’s movement, the jobs and social justice movements, the peace movement, the organic food and alternative health care movements, the new spirituality and self growth movements, etc. Integral to the emergence of the Cultural Creatives is the emergence of women’s issues in the public domain.
Two thirds of Cultural Creatives are women, and in many ways the new value system the Cultural Creatives represent is inextricably related with the fact that this is the first time in history that women’s values have been widely and publicly articulated. They are spiritually motivated and committed to personal growth but are not dogmatically religious. They embrace technology and economic development but only within a deep affirmation of the environment and community. They tend to view the world from the perspective of holistic systems. They are the people paying attention to world events and global trends.
What characterizes the Cultural Creatives is that they are both inner-directed and socially concerned. Cultural Creatives thus have spiritual and psychological depth as well as the maturity needed for a new culture. They are also intensely entrepreneurial and creative. For example, Cultural Creatives are the founders and leaders of most of the green and socially responsible businesses. They are involved in many of the most socially active NGOs and non profit organizations. http://d8406.u24.sustainablehosting.com/content/view/179/135/ (They said it better than I could paraphrase it so I figured it was easier to just copy it. I don’t have all that much time to complete this post. My parents are waiting for me for breakfast.)
Anyway, I figure just about anyone reading my blog is most likely a cultural creative and that is why I decided I should share this info here.
Apparently since the year 2000, this group has been growing rapidly and is now verging on the point of becoming critical mass. Ray and Garrison are working to unite this group into one contingent because they would like to see this group “usher in a new stage of human cultural development.” (WIE August-October, 2008) The movement is being compared to the Renaissance, where a widespread intellectual and cultural transformation swept throughout Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, resulting in lasting changes to the overall society. It seems Garrison and Ray believe a similar leap is now possible through the strength of today’s cultural creatives, if only we could recognize the wave and feed it’s fires.
Currently the cultural creatives have yet to recognize themselves as a unified movement. They are, shall we say scattered, and fail to recognize the potential strength their values could have on society if they were only to unite. Getting them to unite would require that they begin to recognize the commonalitites among them and this is the purpose of Garrison and Ray’s work. They are apparently developing a documentary film, writing a book and planning an international conference on this topic for November of 2009 in Washington, DC. (I have already put this event on my calendar - after all it is being held in my backyard.)
The WIE article has lots of tie-ins to political concepts on which I shall avoid comment. But the reason I wanted to pull the cultural creative concept into this blog is because to speak in extremely broad generalities, the spiritual stance of the cultural creative is similar to the post-conventional believers whose are described as being the “Rationals” and the “Mystics”, the Stage Threes and Stage Fours - those of “non-traditional spirituality.”
Anyway, think about attending that conference in DC in November 2009. I will see you there!
Earlier this week I saw an article in World Wide Religious News (http://wwrn.org/article.php?idd=29090) that said in France they are denying citizenship to a particular Moroccan woman because she wears a burqa. “The Moroccan woman, Faiza M, was told that her practice of “radical” Islam was not compatible with French values. ” the article said.
I am still trying to figure out a response to this - not that anyone asked me! But….well, there must be plenty of French citizens doing things that are not compatible with French values….and they are not denied citizenship. What are French values anyway? Plenty of people in France choose not to drink wine. Isn’t that a French value? It certainly has seemed to be anytime I have ever been there!
On a more serious note, isn’t the French motto: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité? I can see Read the rest of this entry »
You heard in the news last week about the college kid who stole a Eucharistic Host after receiving communion in a Catholic Church? (The article appears here http://www.wftv.com/news/16798008/detail.html and http://www.wftv.com/news/16806050/detail.html.)
And the Catholic Church was of course in an uproar about this. And then this blogger, PZ Myers Read the rest of this entry »
I just finished reading “Called to Question” by Siser Joan Chittister, a true Mystic if ever there was one. Since she is a nun, she of course started out as a traditional believer. The whole book expounds on a personal journal she wrote during a phase when she was questioning her faith. There are no particular entries that describe a Rational stage of faith but the period of questioning would be typical of that stage.
Much of the book speaks of Joan’s wrestling with the line between the traditional religious Read the rest of this entry »