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What is sacrificed at the altar of transactional relationships?  Vulnerability.  You don’t want folks to see the twists and turns of your life that might un-burnish your reputation.  But without vulnerability, there’s no real friendship. 

Jim Burklo attunes the reader to Jesus’ voice in “Tenderly Calling”. It is an invitation for those starting the path of Jesus, as well as for those setting out afresh. He invites the reader into the depths of the Bible’s transformative myth and poetry, into the practices of Christian contemplation, and into action, building the kingdom of heaven and earth.

The St Thomas Collective provides a safe community for Biola students/alumni who find themselves doubting, frustrated, and spiritually homeless.

These three words sum up progressive Christian theology. They represent a turning point in the evolution of human understanding of Ultimate Reality.  The Bible starts with Superman-In-The-Sky and ends with agape – unconditional love – as the identity of the Divine.

Jesus may have been humble. But in the last couple of months, I’ve learned a thing or two about donkeys. And I can say this: Jesus wasn’t humble because he rode into town on a donkey. A donkey is as noble an animal as any horse.

I want to be a Christian and I want to show my daughter who God is and can be, but I’m at a loss. Do I stay where I am or do I join a less Christian church? Either way I will feel like an outsider.

There are many questions that mainstream science can’t answer, at least at the moment.  Ethical and moral questions, such as: who should get the Covid vaccine first?  And how can such a prioritization be made understandable and acceptable to the public?

Let us feast on simple pleasures, and fast from all that gets our bodies and souls out of balance.

PSALMS – interpreted by Jim Burklo. Use freely with attribution

Are we “saved” together, or “saved” separately? It is certainly a living question for Christians to ponder, but it is worth asking in the context of other religions – or in that of no religion at all.  Are we “all in the same boat”, or not? 

You can “walk” these stations by practicing one station per day, from March 20 through Good Friday, April 2 – or at any other time or manner during Lent (Ash Wednesday, February 17, until Easter Sunday, April 4).  

So as this nightmarish era in American politics comes to an end, let us get spiritually prepared to temper justice with mercy – for the sake of the Love who is God, for the sake of democracy, and for the sake of us all.

A lot of us are overwhelmed by the very high volume of this election.  And this isn’t just about a certain candidate’s decibel level.  We’re talking about the inner volume of political narratives roaring through our minds.  We need to prepare spiritually for the likely electoral debacle ahead.

In churches, I often find myself contemplating the cross.  It is a kind of “visio divina” – another way of climbing Guigo’s ladder, through seeing.  It becomes the means of focus, and the focus itself, of worship.  It centers and guides me toward the life-giving Love that is God….

  There are literally hundreds of compelling public-policy based reasons for voting for Joe Biden and the Democrats in the upcoming election. But there is one reason that stands out far, far beyond all others: Donald J. …

In this election season, let us pray that our candidates speak in the rhetoric of this spiritual humility – for a change. America has a soul. Our nation’s heart is still burning to express our transcendent values through the structures of our society.

With a group of extended family members, all white, I’m in a book study group focused on “Me and White Racism” by Layla Saad. Together we’re reflecting on the ways we are personally implicated. It’s not a wallow in white guilt, but rather a bracing, clarifying look at what is, so that we can begin to see what could be.

Every so often, I put out a “musing” that is a guide to my writings and videos. It’s that time when churches make plans for their program year, so this is a good moment to share links to my materials for worship, study, and spiritual practice.  Use freely.  All I ask is attribution!

By identifying ourselves and our churches explicitly as “progressive”, we have lifted our perspective on the faith to a much higher level of public awareness.  Our efforts have legitimized our understanding of Christianity, making it much more accessible to the growing number of Christians who yearn for an alternative way to understand and walk the way of Jesus.

And who are you, in this identity-shattering era through which we’re living?  Journaling your dreams and sharing them with others might help you answer that question….

Annually, for several years, I visited the monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a beautiful compound north of downtown Tucson. I was amazed at the physical, mental, and spiritual liveliness of these mostly older women, and the level of their engagement with the world despite their mostly cloistered way of life.

Covid-19 has separated us from our officially-sanctioned holy places and sacred things.  The members of our church in Los Angeles yearn to get back to our beloved worship space.  But we are seizing this opportunity to turn the church inside out.  We are finding the sacred in the relationships we maintain with each other on computer screens, in the elements of communion we assemble from donuts and crackers and orange juice and coffee, and in the urban, indoor, and natural environments that have become our sanctuaries.

Black lives matter.  Not at the expense of other lives.  By affirming that Black lives matter in this moment in history, all lives matter more. It is worth reflecting on why and how this is true.

  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”  (St Paul, Romans 8: 26) I …

Wisdom is paying attention while refraining from the assumption that you understand everything about what you are observing.  Indeed, in order to pay full attention, we must release our grasp on what we do know, so that we make room in our hearts and minds for further knowledge. 

After many such encounters, I began to realize that the seemingly random and disconnected utterances of people in psychosis often had very deep significance.  Their expressions were profound reflections of their subjective experience, windows into the souls of us all.  We take our inner lives for granted, not examining the structure of the psyche, until there is a breakdown.  Then its contents are revealed, and we get a look at its structure.   This inner architecture is amazing, but it’s not neat, tidy, and rational, so it can be a scary discovery.

To know something new requires un-knowing that you know it all.  Darwin’s epiphanies deliver the reader into this place of un-knowing, which opens us to the knowledge of what lies beyond.

A meditation for Peaks and Professors students at USC – with Rev. Jim Burklo, Sr Associate Dean, Office of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Wise men and women know that there are times when you can’t go back the way you came.  So it was for the three magi from the East, who, having caught the vision of the Christ in Bethlehem, knew they needed to take another road home. 

What forms do your communion elements take during this time of Shelter In Place?  See mine, below this entry… from Palm Sunday.  Mt Hollywood Church is urging people to take pix of their home-made communion elements – whether wine and bread, milk and cookies, juice and cereal – and posting them on social media

In the gospel of John, there is a long conversation in the Temple in Jerusalem between Jesus and his Pharisee detractors (John 8: 12-59).  Long, because they spent so much time arguing about their initial assumptions.  It ended badly, with the Pharisees taking up stones to kill him.

A mindfulness meditation on “seeing that you are seen” – for students and staff in this time of “physical distancing”.

Just when we need church community the most, we’re being advised by public health experts to maintain “social distance” to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the Torah, on the Sabbath you can pick up an apple that naturally falls from a tree onto the ground, but you can’t pick it from the tree.  Mindful Christian meditative prayer practice is very similar.  In it, we take time to see things as they are, without interfering with them or trying to fix or change them.

In worship at Mt Hollywood Church in LA, Sunday, Feb 16, I “channeled” William Jennings Bryan, best known as the fundamentalist Christian lawyer who defended six-day creationism in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.

Students – and everyone else – are thirsty for non-transactional connections.  They crave real friendships that are grounded in unconditional agape love.