Our 25th Anniversary

-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hagar & Ishmael (Genesis 16-17 & 21)

-
Image
We come now to a narrative that in some ways is the worst story in all of scripture. The reason it is so bad is because many trace the present-day conflict between Jews and Arabian peoples back to the story, the narrative of Abram, Sarai, Hagar, and Ishmael. A deadly feud that is always in danger of breaking out in full out war, like now - that many see this story as the start of it all certainly makes it a haunted story. It all begins in Genesis 16. The story basically goes like this: Abram and Sarai grow increasingly impatient that the child God promised them isn’t arriving. Sarai especially is having difficulty waiting. Without consulting God, Sarai hatches a plan. Have Abram marry one of their enslaved. Hagar is chosen. Hagar and Abram consummate their union and indeed a child is conceived, a boy who will be named Ishmael. But as the story goes in Genesis 16, the pregnant Hagar makes her lack of fondness for Sarai increasingly known. Sarai responds in kind and worse. A feud begin...
Read more

Jesus as Bodhisattva

-
Image
There is the centuries-old legend that between the age of 12 and 33, which in the gospels are not mentioned, Jesus traveled to India and learned about Buddhism. These lost years were spent studying and practicing the Buddhist dharma. Jesus internalized the dharma on the basis of his cultural-religious background, and came back to Palestine and taught a kind of Buddhist-Judaism. There is no historical evidence for this. Yet there are groups of Indians and Tibetans who hold to it. And it is pretty interesting for us to consider. That the story continues to make the rounds with many people believing it to be true itself says a lot. Many of us would like to believe it! One thing is for sure, what Christ taught was often very buddhistic. Jesus’ teaching, whether knowingly or not, tapped into buddhistic notions of righteous self-emptying and righteous effort amid suffering, the exaltation of the poor and the vulnerable, and the focus on the imminence of truth and the practice of compassion...
Read more

"I Want to Know What Love Is" (M. Jones/Foreigner): A Meditation

-
Image
Like last week, I’m going to use a popular song to point to some spiritual truths this morning. Today, we look at the 1984 smash hit “I Want to Know What Love Is” by the hugely successful band Foreigner. The song would be Foreigner’s biggest hit. The song comes from the middle of the 1980’s, the greed is good, the decade of decadence generation. Here are some hit songs then on the radio that give us a flavor of that glam-gilded decade: -           2 songs titled “Jump” -           Karma Chameleon -           Girls Just Want to Have Fun -           Ghostbusters -           Footloose -           What’s Love Got to Do with It -           Glamorous Life Waiting in the wings to be a hit in 1985, Material Girl, a song epitomizing the materialism of the decade. Amid the “it’s all about fun and materialism” era, comes thi...
Read more