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Church is not for everyone. Even for those who like it, there are as many distractions as attractions to the spiritual life there. I thought of entitling this “spirituality for loners” because I want to suggest eight ways of experiencing spiritual community outside of church!

So what do I mean by a sacred community or spiritual community, or as Peck would call it a true community? I refer here to an intentional community with an identifiable common purpose. Maybe that purpose is simple to grow spiritually as individuals. It is a community where one can transcend oneself and experience a sense of the interconnectedness of life. It is a community in which each member seeks to see and relate to the divine or the sacred in the other.

Great Life-Force, God of all nurture;
Honor and praise to you.
Your peace and justice fill the Earth;
Honor and praise to you.

“Where is the Door to God? In the sound of a dog barking. In the ring of a hammer, In a drop of rain, In the face of Everyone I see.”
~Hafiz

“You may call God love, you may call God goodness, but the best name for God is compassion.”
~ Meister Eckhart

“It’s not enough to LOVE, people have to feel that they are LOVED.”
~Saint John Bosco

Blessing taxpayers and taxes for the sake of the common good, while asking for divine guidance as citizens in shaping and improving the way our taxes are spent

Clearing lifetimes of Karma
through my heart
a portal of healing
draws us into love
beyond our fears
of separation

Since 9/11 Americans have largely accepted the idea that national security requires a trade-off between government power and freedom. However, recent revelations about the extent of government surveillance have raised serious questions about overreach, abuse of power, and the limits of democracy. How should people of faith respond to these revelations? Amid wide-spread public apathy over drone warfare, surveillance, and open-ended wars on “terror,” how can faith leaders provide stronger moral leadership? Do our faith traditions have anything distinctive to say in relation to alleged government overreach, whether by the NSA or the CIA? And how do we assess the ethics of those who expose secret government operations in the name of preventing abuse?

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. ~ Søren Kierkegaard

You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life. ~Eckhart Tolle

I believe in God.

(Except when I don’t.)

When others tell me who God is,
I’m believing not so much.

When I kiss my daughters goodnight,
my belief is overwhelming.

A simple, touching video inspired by Saint Francis, a man who devoted his life to Jesus and to the poor. Shot on location in Assisi, Italy and narrated by a small child, this worship film is ideal for reflection and prayer.

As the old year passes

we look back, reflect:

times of joy and promise,

times we’d best forget.

A supersessionist view of the Christian covenant might have made some little sense in a mythic worldview, but never made any moral sense. The time has long since come for Christians to drop such an arrogant claim. It has contributed to extraordinary suffering and eroded any moral authority we might think we have. In that sense, it never made any just sense of the work of God we’ve come to know in Jesus Christ.

First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael Published on Oct 15, 2013 Rev. Sam Alexander is Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael. He is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, B.A., and Union Seminary in Virginia, …

Toward the end of 2013 many of us had a strong sense of shedding, releasing, and letting go. There was sickness, death, closing of chapters, ends, silence, and darkness… Now, as we begin this new year, we find our selves in a time of New Birth and New Ways. Join us on this journey into Newness and Co-Creation.

I do believe mainstream Christians have a problem with intimacy. I once heard seminary professor and author Carter Heyward describe their God as a “Gentleman God,” embarrassed by sexual passion, yet too polite and dispassionate to be rabidly anti-gay. And the changing position of the Beloved Disciple may have to do with a fear of homoerotic implications.