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So why do we persist in comparing ourselves to others? And suffering the frustration that results?

So it was a great irony that some of the most homeful people in Palo Alto were the houseless.  And some of the most homeless people in Silicon Valley were the housed. 

There’s a lot of criticism about Big Pharma, Big Government, and Big Business.  And there’s been plenty of talk for decades about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. What about Big Fundy? We should name it for what it is: the fundamentalist-industrial complex.

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved,[e] with whom I am well pleased.”

Watch Jim Burklo talk about his history with Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism and how he changed over the years to Progressive Christianity.

The early Christians looked to Abraham as their progenitor – even if they weren’t Jewish Christians.  They remembered the words attributed to John the Baptist:  “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. “  (Matt 3: 9)

The non-religious are by far the fastest-growing religious demographic in America.  So how shall we who are progressive Christians talk about our faith with them, when the appropriate occasions arise?

Justin James Sinclair is a young man on a mission.  He made retreats at the St Andrew’s Abbey and New Camaldoli monasteries in California, where, to his astonishment, he discovered a strand of Christianity that no one in the evangelical churches he attended, nor at Biola University where he studied, had revealed to him before. 

The sacred myth tells us that Jesus rose from death after three days – what transformation happened in that tomb? Jim Burklo connects the story with our gestation of fear into faith, victimhood into victory, harmful theology into healthy spirituality.

“People will see through who’s behind it. They’ll see what their real agenda is, set that aside, and we can have a deeper  conversation about who Jesus was, what he was about and what we’re about as his followers today,” Burklo said. 

Keller apparently has no awareness of the spiritual renewal going on right now in progressive Christian churches that embrace the contemplative, mystical tradition of the faith, which evangelicals would do well to discover and practice if they’re interested in renewal. 

I’m inviting folks to engage with 14 of the questions that Jesus asked his followers during his ministry.  From Ash Wednesday, 2/22, through Easter

Years ago, my dear wife, Roberta Maran, came up with an idea at Christmas that enchanted me.  “In addition to other presents, let’s give people Christmas boxes that have nothing inside of them – except messages that are deep and pithy!”

Christmas is a season of lights… And a season to become enlightened…. To notice and amplify the light that shines within us all, revealing inner wisdom and guidance for our lives. 

  A little Episcopal church on Martha’s Vineyard flipped the anti-immigrant scripts of Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis by embracing, with open doors and hearts, a group of migrants flown there from Texas and Florida. Such flights …

I have lived long enough to see some patterns that I fear are being repeated.  I came of age in a time when my generation wanted to turn the world upside down – and for good reason.

Let us celebrate this wondrous thing called love.  The kind of love Jesus was talking about in his Sermon on the Mount was agape – unconditional love. 

“Never in any case whatever is a genuine effort of the attention wasted. It always has its effect on the spiritual plane and in consequence on the lower one of the intelligence, for all spiritual light lightens the mind.” 

As a progressive Christian, how should one read and understand the story about Lazarus and the rich man?

America is not a gun. We’re a lot better than that. We prove it every day by loving our neighbors (even ones we don’t particularly like), campaigning for sensible gun laws, taking care of people in need in our communities.

If God is love, then suffering and evil aren’t God’s fault.  Love attracts but doesn’t force, doesn’t compel.

A group of religious extremists – namely, the majority of members of the Supreme Court – are going to nullify a 50-year old legal precedent in order to reach their long-time goal of taking away a fundamental and sacred human right: the right of a woman to choose to terminate pregnancy. 

The practice of contemplating the Stations of the Cross, depicting the final hours of Jesus’ life, is a very old one. Many Catholic churches have gardens or sanctuaries in which the stations are situated.  Each of the 14 stations marks a point along the way to Jesus’ death.

Do you love who you are becoming?  Are you enjoying the giddy delight of tumbling down the flume?  Because in your delight in becoming, the Knower within you will transform your relationship to time, and usher you into the eternal now – the kin-dom of heaven on earth – where there is nothing to grasp, and everything to love…

It ends with this sentence:  “Even on the days when I’m not sure I can believe it wholeheartedly, this is the story I’m willing to be wrong about.” And that humility suffuses the whole book. 

Souljourning empowers parents, children, and communities to nurture the natural spirituality of people aged 0-21. Souljourning offers resources, publications, events, and consultation for parents and groups.

Is there purpose driving evolution?” In other words, it would seem that a theology of God and evolution demands human responsibility to see that plan through to fruition.

When will we ever learn? It is time to get serious about studying current events and the history that has led up to them. So that we don’t make the mistakes we made in Afghanistan – and Iraq and Central America and Vietnam – ever again.

What brings us closer together around the communion table of divine love? What drives us apart? But or And, Against or Through, For or With?

What would happen if other faithful people began to ask questions instead of arguing with answers they don’t like?  What would happen if we followed St. Paul’s advice and stopped returning evil for evil?  What would happen if we asked serious questions instead of behaving defensively in response to religious or political bombast?

Fundamentalist leaders used to describe progressive Christians as a shrinking heretical sect, if they noticed us at all.  Now they condemn us as an existential threat to the survival of evangelicalism.  Their rhetoric should inspire in us a healthy vigilance, as America drifts into deeper polarization and ominous threats of violence. 

How can we stop the hate and bring the far right & left together to find the middle we can walk together and work for the USA’s survival?

  Not long ago, I “mused” about my new friend at USC, Shane Cole – whom I refer to affectionately as a “digital Mennonite”.  He’s founding a student club he is calling “Digital Detox” – to promote a radically …

We are all Americans – of all ethnicities, cultures, and political persuasions.  We won’t allow ourselves to be divided.  We stand up, speak out, and we vote for preserving our democracy through free and fair elections to express the will of our majority, so that we can secure liberty and justice for all.

Wisdom not much different than what St Benedict, a founder of Christian monasticism, observed about the contemplative life:  “Always we begin again.” Or what the 20th century Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, wrote about prayer:  “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.”
 

Simply put, love is attention.  It is not complicated to pay attention to your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and urges.  It is not rocket science to stop, sit, and listen to another person who needs your time and focus.