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From a rich lode of speeches, articles in eBulletins, and numerous publications, Fred Plumer has mined those that define the Progressive Christianity movement as it evolves to meet new challenges in a rapidly changing world.

Xavier Rudd and The United Nations perform @ LEAF Spring 2015. Since the very beginning, Xavier Rudd’s ability to connect with people has been his most powerful gift. The more he has toured the world, the more hearts he has touched and the more of the world he has put back into his music.

  Two weeks ago, grieving the death of my neighborhood church, I nonetheless felt self-conscious about expressing my wish to cry inconsolably on this blog. I was embarrassed to be so open about my feelings, but it …

This is the message sent out to the world by a well-known spiritual leader. “Life without God is like a non-sharpened pencil. It has no point.” If you are triggered, first start by noticing your trigger, and breathe. At least that’s what I had to do.

Seriously? Please tell me I did not just read that? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! My thoughts focused on how divisive the statement is. You just alienated atheists, secular humanists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and God knows how many millions of others! (Pun intended!) I don’t know about you, but I am in no position to tell an atheist, or anyone else for that matter, their life is pointless. I feel confident that brilliant and compassionate atheists like Bill Gates, Simone de Beauvoir, Butterfly McQueen, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mark Twain, to name a few, would disagree as well. Not to mention, I see their atheist lives as anything BUT pointless!

When someone says, “I love you,” respond. Please. They need to hear it, they need to connect to that thread of life. We bear so much in life that is heart-wrenching. Let’s become a world bearing the weight of knowing just how lovable we are. Go find someone and be willing to speak out loud the times you have expressed yourself in challenging ways – it cleans your window. Then let them know you have seen when they have been broken, distant, selfish, unteachable, and they have never been unloved. It takes no special training, degrees, certifications or special knowledge for your heart to find that thread and share it because that thread of belonging is see-able in the light of being. So go be.

Step out to the edge of your heart’s greatest calling, brave and courageous adventurer. Still your mind, listen deeply within, follow your intuition and take the leap of faith that will always bridge you from fear of the unknown, to the KNOWN and Holy Grail of your life’s loving mission and realized bliss.

Is it a coincidence that the soul is so closely related to the story of Jesus? Does the idea of being born pure of a virgin hint to some basic truth that we’ve been missing about the nature of our true identity? Are the miracles that Jesus performs representative of the restorative properties of the soul? Does resistance indicate that we would not recognize Jesus if he stared us in the face? Would we therefore advocate crucifixion with the accusation of heresy and blasphemy? Is it possible that the soul lives on after death just like Jesus? Why wouldn’t the story of Jesus Christ be a basic metaphor to symbolize the soul?

This book explores the Christian faith from the perspective of evolutionary spirituality. It looks at the life and teaching of Jesus through this lens. The author asserts that evolution is the fundamental dynamic of our universe, transcending biology, to include culture and consciousness. Jesus himself was tapped into a sacred evolutionary current to transcend, yet include, his own religious lineage. This urge for self and cultural transcendence therefore is an essential element of the Christian faith: there is no final iteration of the Christian faith. Everything, including the Christian faith, is in the process of transcending itself. When we realize the mystical awareness that we are the presence of a sacred evolutionary process awakening to itself, we catalyze the power of what traditionally has been called the Holy Spirit.

Each step of our life’s journey, whether we are aware of it or not, is a series of leaps of faith. Certain moments of our life, seemingly dramatic in nature, serve to punctuate and mark major turning points that define who we believe we are, what we have accomplished, relationships of meaning and opportunities that lead to a particular experience.

Spiritual awareness often begins at the point where our inner thoughts reflectively seek meaning in the external world of our drama. This search empowers the transformation of unconscious perception into awakened vision. Such clarity creates the understanding that we are always, consciously or unconsciously, choosing and co-creating our existence.

Each moment of the day, nanosecond after nanosecond, we are co-creating a reality from which we are either conscious or unconscious. To the degree we are conscious, lovingly paying attention to the moment, our co-creativity tends to reflect a flow of ease and grace in our experiences. To the degree we are unconscious, we reactively and retrospectively discover the fearful hand that has scripted the dramatic sequences of our existence.

Prayers are a significant part of public church services. They can also form an important part of one’s personal life. Some people engage in praying frequently and regularly. For some it is a formal, repetitive experience, performing the same ritual at the same time each day; for others it can be a long or short intimate time of spontaneous, deep reflection/sharing. For some it can involve significant searching for a way through the maze of life, while for others it may be the outpouring of grief, sorrow or thanksgiving. For many it is a time of self-reflection or contemplation of one’s particular situation.

One researcher suggests that the Golden Rule remains the most common method to resolve ethical dilemmas. More often, however, the Golden Rule is the implicit ethic that underlies and supports codes of good business conduct and responsible consumption.

The websites presented in this document are offered as a service to all who are interested in delving further into the field of business ethics.

  For the many churches that have asked us for a book with calls to Worship and other liturgies, we now have an excellent one. It is Prayers of Via De Christo. It is the product of …

‘Prayers of Via de Cristo: Calls to Worship for Progressive Christians’ offers a collection of 125 service prayers created specifically for an informal and introspective Progressive Christian congregation. Comfortable with contemporary situation, conversation, and scholarship, these reflective prayers focus on a wide range of themes and perspectives.

Practice being a person of increase and thanksgiving. Our gratitude will lead us naturally to giving, we’re grateful so we give, and then we receive, and then we are grateful some more! What we will do for a life of meaning, peace, compassion and love will always be far more powerful than what we will do for money.

In my own experience, the best thing I can do for my friends is to listen to them. If I’m doing too much of the talking, then I’m not adequately listening. And when I listen, I do best if I really listen: just be present in silence and give my friend my full, compassionate, truly interested attention. The fourth century Christian mystic, Gregory of Nyssa, said that “we consider becoming God’s friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire.” Mindful prayer is being God’s friend, and letting God be a friend to us: simply being, attentively, with each others’ being.

sadly in a world dominated by might, money, and power, some people look upon compassion, mercy, gentleness of spirit, inclusiveness and unconditional love as weakness. In a world blighted by terrorism, war and indescribable brutality demonstrated day by day, for example in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan; in a world where many have become indifferent, self righteous and just downright selfish; in a world where Bible passages are taken out of context to uphold racism, sexism, homophobia and unhealthy nationalism: these are the places in which compassion, mercy, gentleness of spirit, inclusiveness and unconditional love should work and speak.