About the Author: Don Murray

Donald F. Murray, B.A., M.Div., M.Th.; further training in Transactional Analysis, Education Design, Group Dynamics, The School of Sacred Psychology (Jean Houston's Mystery School), Jungian Psychology. Don is a United Church of Canada minister, educator, workshop facilitator and author enjoying retired life with his partner Emily Kierstead in Truro, Nova Scotia. He served pastorates in the Maritimes for 32 years and as a Program Director and then Executive Director of Tatamagouche Education and Spirituality Centre for 8 years. Having awakened to the-death-of-God in the early 1960s, Don has been an avid searcher. He has authored four books, "For Unbelieving Christians" (1987), "Celebrating Eve" (2001), "The Death and Resurrection of God: From Christianity to the New Story" (2014), and now "The Bible Beyond Religion: Witness to the Evolution of Consciousness". With Emily, he enjoys their families, eight children (two deceased) and eleven grandchildren, along with fiddle playing, singing, and a passion for the emerging Universe Story. Visit his website here: https://donmurraybooks.ca/
  • Looking from the Past to an Emerging Future

    By Published On: August 28, 2022

    My thesis is that the dictates of history, our contemporary experience, and the demands of the future, tell us that the age of Christianity, and indeed all religions, is over, and a new grounding myth is showing glimpses of emerging. A new age is dawning.

  • By Published On: February 10, 2022

    By the time we have considered climate change, the environment, sexism, racism, popularism, and injustice of all sorts, there is little time left for considering our understanding of God, religion, and the whole spiritual realm.

  • By Published On: June 2, 2021

    No one doubts that we are living in a time of major transformation. With the environmental crisis, the populist crisis, rampant individualism, a consumer economy, racism, sexism, ageism, a pandemic, and whatever else, the handwriting is on the wall. We are in the midst of a critical time. What we do, or fail to do, as a human species will dictate our future. The question we all must deal with is, “How do you read the handwriting on the wall?” We need to know where we are before we can move forward.

  • By Published On: March 5, 2021

    In this book, Don Murray explores the wisdom we can inherit from the Bible after Christianity has faded as a creative religious force.

  • (Kindle Edition)

    By Published On: March 5, 2021

    If traditional religion no longer holds you, yet you yearn for a deeply spiritual and intellectually satisfying communion with the great Mystery, this book offers the New Story, the Universe Story, that is evolving out of all that has gone before. Author Don Murray invites us into a quantum leap of consciousness that is now happening. He takes us through the 13.7 billion years of an evolving universe and assesses where humanity is, and how we can live into a creative future. Quantum physics, depth psychology, the human journey – which includes the biblical story – provide the material with which he weaves the New Story.

  • By Published On: February 5, 2021

    Most of us have gone quietly on saying how terrible it is and doing nothing. We (I) am all too comfortable in our (my) innocence and ignorance of the grim reality of the life of those oppressed. But the move is on. The age of innocence is over.

  • By Published On: August 30, 2016

    Are the Dog Days of summer drawing to a close? Are we feeling a little chill in the air as the long evenings of summer begin to shorten? We’ve had our share of those warm sultry days. But we’re not complaining. We will remember them fondly in mid January. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the Dog Days of summer go from July 3rd to August 11th, coinciding with the morning rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. And that tradition goes back to the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians who believed that it was Sirius that brought the hot muggy weather.

  • By Published On: March 1, 2016

    In the larger scheme of life, I believe that the great challenge of western culture is to connect with our souls, our inner being, the “still small voice” that urges us to be this or do that. In the busyness and challenges of life it is easy to push aside that inner light and get on with the demands of work, family, and all the responsibilities life brings. The temptation is to live on the surface of life and neglect its depths.

  • By Published On: January 28, 2015

    The Bible is, in my mind, the best witness the Western World had to the evolution of human consciousness. That is a story in itself – I’m working on the book. However, what is true on the grand scale of one tradition’s journey toward wholeness is also true as a map for our personal growth. We can see the ages and stages of our own lives against the background of the biblical story. I will touch on some main points.

  • By Published On: June 24, 2014

    As part of this evolving universe we have our personal psyches, our individual mix of influences that shape and mold our lives and nourish our unique creativity. Amongst the multitude of forces that work within us is a central energy pushing us toward integration and wholeness. This integrating and creative force Jung called the Self.

  • By Published On: May 19, 2014

    In the short interval between hearing the words and partaking of the symbolic body of Christ, I was enveloped in one of those rare moments of total oneness with all that is. The word “body” became present to me in a way I had not previously experienced. A feeling of connectedness with all mortal life swept over me. And beyond that an awareness of my aliveness being one with the aliveness of the earth and universe.

  • By Published On: April 21, 2014

    To believe, or give assent to, a fixed set of beliefs, such as, “I believe in God the father almighty....,” or the inerrency of the Bible is to cut off the possibility of growth. If you have all the answers you are not open to new thoughts or questions. Communicating with a fundamentalist is very difficult, and we are all fundamentalist in a variety of ways. But Leonard Cohen reminds us that “there is a crack in everything, that’s where the light comes in.”

  • By Published On: June 19, 2013

    "This book sees Eve as the mythic heroine, rather than the villain, of the human adventure. The biblical story then takes on a

  • Don Murray’s Version

    By Published On: May 24, 2013

    I am a child of the Universe. Everyone is a child of the Universe. We are all one, no matter what our race, colour or creed,. The wondrous evolving Universe has created dust, stars, galaxies, sun, earth and all creatures upon it. We are from the earth; self-conscious creatures; the Universe experiencing and reflecting upon itself. The Universe Story is our primary story.

  • By Published On: October 26, 2012

    Before the 2012 SnowStar Conference fades into the background I would like to push forward some of Roy Hoover’s comments regarding the changing paradigm. As I recall – apologies for any inaccuracies – he spoke of the need for integrating the insights of Galileo and Darwin in order to make the paradigm shift from the age of superstition to the age of reason. History as a search for what actually happened and science now form the road to truth.

  • By Published On: February 12, 2012

    The season of the Solstice is the appropriate time to array our homes, our world, in light. Something deep within us is responding to a desire that seems to come from the heart of the Universe.

  • By Published On: December 4, 2011

    A New Story is beginning to emerge, the foundation of which is The Universe Story. You are a child of the Universe. Everyone of whatever race, colour or creed is a child of the Universe. It is the great uniting story, of which I have written many times.

  • By Published On: April 19, 2011

    Don Murray relates how the cycles of the Earth relate to our continual celebrations of the life and death of Jesus.

  • By Published On: April 17, 2011

    Don Murray recounts the recent burning of a Qu'ran by Pastor Terry Jones, and how this relates to the history of the conflict between the three great monotheisms.

  • By Published On: March 24, 2011

    With so many unfortunate world tragedies occurring, compassion should be our goal as human beings. This article reminds us that compassion is what can lead us toward the triumph of peace and justice our world.

  • By Published On: March 15, 2010

    There was Jay, welcoming people with a smile and exuding a joie de vivre that spread throughout the group gathering for worship at St. Andrew’s United Church last Sunday (May 10). This was a special Sunday. Not only was it Mother’s Day, it was the day they were voting on whether to become an Affirming Congregation.

  • By Published On: October 13, 2009

    Savour the moments. Appreciate the day. We don't know what life will bring us. Sometimes we will be called to courage and endurance. Sometimes we will have to bear our own and others' pain. Being with a loved one through illness and death can be a trying yet profound experience. It is our experience of living that shapes us and calls from us the best that is in us

  • By Published On: August 18, 2009

    Unfortunately, many churches are slow to change and are out of sync with modern times. Often neither the theology nor the music speak to the souls of people of today.

  • By Published On: April 28, 2009

    Resurrection happens in the course of history. Ideas, ways of thinking, accepted understandings are born, live for a time, then fade and die.