As anyone who’s read or listened to me share my journey over the years knows full well, I have now arrived at a place (at least for now!) where – in my thinking, and with the window through which I see the world these days – I call myself a “post-theist.”

Frida Kahlo wrote the ultimate lovers’ poem that concludes with this assurance, “You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.” In this age when couples typically no longer stay married out of economic necessity or for mere survival, what is it that keeps people together. Even more, what inspires a couple who are already past child bearing years or even career concerns, to sacrifice independence and freedom in order to share a common life? I think that it is meaning we seek even more than a mere surcease of loneliness. What we really want is not just someone with whom to share our morning coffee but also someone who will read poetry to us. Is that too much to ask, or do we, as Kahlo suggests, what we deserve?

Who among us would want a friend like Jeremiah? He was a determined truth-teller who had the nerve to stand at the entrance of the Temple and declare the fragility of what Judah considered inviolable. In the days of Hezekiah, the Assyrians who had eliminated the Kingdom of Israel failed in their siege of Jerusalem. After the reforms of Josiah, the sanctity of the Temple was considered even safer. Yet Jeremiah saw folly in an alliance of Josiah’s son with Egypt against Babylon and assumptions of Temple safety.

The Christian story, from Genesis until now, is fundamentally about people on the move—outgrowing old, broken religious systems and embracing new, more redemptive ways of life.

It’s time to move again.

The story we tell about the world shapes how we live. Along Cory’s journey, readers will discover six familiar stories that have repeated through history, teaching us all how to dominate, fear, or withdraw from the world and the beautiful people in it. The good news is that there is another story, a path of openheartedness toward others. Cory’s discovery of the Seventh Story will inspire children and adults alike.

A life time of study, a master’s degree and two doctorates (psychology and spirituality), interfaith ordination, numerous articles, nine books, and the wisdom of age, can all be distilled to this:

I climbed up a lion of rock
There overlooking the swirls of the world
All the shifting of sands that I saw
Conflicting energy giving and taking,
The fluid grace of it all
Billowing shadows of clouds in the sand
While the waves lay down all stretched and taught
Folding and wrinkling back to the source of it all

The Parliament of the World’s Religions is proud to distribute It’s About Time, a weekly podcast produced in partnership with our allies at Religica.org and Seattle University.

The news is devastating. Our planet is on a crash course with wide-scale death and degradation. The poorest of people and the most vulnerable of species are getting hit the hardest. It isn’t a pretty picture! Does God care?

Many people these days have little time to participate in any kind of regular “in-person” spirituality group, and yet they know that studying and practicing with others can contribute signicantly to their spiritual growth. Now you can use the e-courses and online retreats already created for Spirituality & Practice as a program for your own group. Your group will receive the emailed lessons, links to any video and audio content in the e-course, and your own private “Practice Circle” (an online forum at SpiritualityandPractice.com) for your discussions.

The embodiment of LOVE is achieved when we who are made of LOVE, recognize ourselves in the other, because LOVE is not something that we do, LOVE is who we are. LOVE bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, LOVE never ends. Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. When we recognize ourselves in the other, we are the embodiment of LOVE. Now we know only in part, then we will know fully, even as we have been fully known. When we recognize ourselves in the other, faith, hope, and LOVE abide, these three; and the greatest of these is LOVE.

The 22nd chapter of Proverbs seems like a random list of statements that are right brain rather than left because they wander around a labyrinth rather than go straight to a clear point. Yet a message of compassion stands out that begins with how children are raised.

Imagine that you memorize a book of recipes.  You quote passages from the recipes, with breathless enthusiasm, to other people – whether they care to listen or not.  You follow each recipe to the letter.  You chop and mix and bake and cook according to the instructions.  You show off the finished product, proclaiming its absolute superiority to all others.

But you never bother to eat the food.

To help kick off Black History Month, here are two bite-sized pieces of wisdom from the late, great literary genius, Maya Angelou. Like gems, these are ideas you can put in your pocket, and take them out whenever you need them 🙂

With aid in dying becoming an increasingly available and legal option for the terminally ill, conversations and decisions about end-of-life choices are more frequently an essential part of our healthcare landscape. However, those with severe dementia are not yet legally eligible for such aid. By examining the moving stories of those who have faced the abyss of long-term dementia, the author, a retired Episcopal priest, makes the case that dementia and Alzheimer’s patients should also have legal access to aid in dying.

So, let me see if I can summarize in a few words what thousands of books and articles have been written about over decades costing untold billions in research grants on phenomena taking fifteen billion years to happen after the “Big Bang”. The result of such research perhaps resulting in the end of civilization in the big “dang!” (nuclear war). 

Life is hard. If I want to relate to life’s spiritual dimension in a way that embraces—rather than evades—the human experience, generative spirituality unfolds for me along three axes:

Generative spirituality is rooted in the past. Those who have gone before: our ancestral legacy, faith lineage, families of origin.

Generative spirituality has a robust relationship with the present moment. Who am I if I’m radically present, being here now?

And… perhaps the least-understood element…generative spirituality anchors faith forward into tomorrow.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.