Faith & Life Inspirational Message

There are so many different ways to think about the spiritual life.   And of course, in our country there are so many different variations of religious experiences.   There are liberals and conservatives.   There are fundamentalists and Pentecostals.   Besides the dizzying variety of Christian traditions, there are many different non-Christian traditions.   There are the major traditions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.   There are the slightly more obscure traditions, such as Sikhism, Jainism, etc.   And then there are more fringe groups and, even, pseudo-religions.   There are defining doctrines and religious practices.   Some of these are specific to a particular tradition or a few traditions, such as the koan , which is used in Zen Buddhism for example.   Other defining doctrines or practices are common across the religious board.   Something like meditation would be a good example.   Christians meditate; B...

Recently I had the occasion to return to some readings that I did long ago.   Because of an article I am writing, I needed to go back to my Quaker roots for some ideas and Quaker way of putting those ideas.   I returned to one of my favorite Quakers of last century, Douglas Steere.   I knew Douglas as an acquaintance, but not well enough to call a friend.   He was a long-time professor of philosophy at Haverford College in the Philadelphia area.     In some ways Douglas Steere became a role model for me.   He was one of those seasoned veterans who come along early in one’s career.   Douglas was an academic---a good academic.   But he also was a man of the Spirit and a man of the world.   Douglas was involved in the ecumenical movement long before most of us knew what the word meant.   He read Catholic literature, much of which today we would talk about as the Catholic spiritual literature.   He chose to spend a month in a ...

Recently I have been doing some background research for a paper that I have agreed to write.   The paper offers a comparative look at my favorite monk, Thomas Merton, and the Quaker perspective on contemplative spirituality.   Certainly, Merton thought and wrote quite a bit about contemplation.   In fact, his monastery in Kentucky is rightly called a contemplative monastery.   Without going into a full explanation of contemplation, let it simply be understood here as a way of trying to live life in the Presence of God.             Quakers historically have not used the language of contemplation.   That meant that I would not have know much about the topic and would probably have answered negatively, if I had been asked whether Quakers were contemplative.   Now I would say that Quakers share much of what contemplation means without using the term or the normal contemplative language.   I had j...

Sometimes my life can get too complex.   It may be because too much is going on.   Perhaps it is something like the beginning of a new school year or a holiday season.   Sometimes it is self-inflicted.   For those of us who have a hard time saying, “no,” life can become too demanding.   Busyness is always a sign that life is bordering on being too complex.             But I am aware that complex lives cannot simply be equated with busy lives.   For some people, it is the opposite extreme, namely, boredom.   I know some people who, in their own words, “are bored to death.”   Obviously they are not literally dead.   But their boredom is a form of being dead---a kind of pre-mortem deadness.   They are as good as dead.                When I sense complexity is becoming a pressing life issue for me, I know it is ti...

I enjoy finding pithy or great summary statements.   I just found one in my favorite Quaker book.   Thomas Kelly wrote the popular Quaker book, A Testament of Devotion , which actually is a series of lectures.   Some of these come out of his experience of WWII.   Kelly spent some time in Germany watching Hitler come to power.   He returned to this country.   One of the chapters is entitled, “The Eternal Now and Social Concern.”   The core ideas were originally a lecture delivered to a gathering of German Quakers.             The summary statement embodies so much of what I have been taught when growing up as a Quaker.   Kelly writes that the central Quaker message affirms “The possibility of this experience of Divine Presence, as a repeatedly realized and present fact, and its transforming and transfiguring effect upon all life…”   If I can unpack this amazing sentence and understand i...

One of the things I have come to value is the daily lectionary.   A lectionary is a schedule of readings used by many Christian traditions.   It is a useful tool for anyone looking to engage in some kind of daily or regular worship and reflection.   As a young Quaker, I had never heard the word, lectionary.   We never used that, although I was aware of a few people using the Upper Room devotional booklet, which was a similar idea.             I first encountered the lectionary with my Catholic and Episcopal friends I made when I went to college.   The lectionary always had some readings from the Bible, including readings from the Psalms.   Sometimes, these Biblical readings were augmented by a reading from a figure from Christian history or some more contemporary author.   The lectionary moved one through the liturgical year.   I realized the lectionary helped me avoid simply picking out ...

I have always been fascinated with titles.   When you read that sentence, you probably think of book titles.   Certainly, most people would say that book titles are important.   I would not disagree.   But when you think about it further, there are many other kinds of titles.      Since I have paid off my old car, I have the title to that.   It shows that I now own it.   The bank owns the title to most of our houses.   So apparently, a great deal of property comes with titles to show ownership.   But not all ownership is individual.   Some things are owned corporately.   The college where I teach is a private school, so that means there is ownership.   But it is owned corporately.   The appointed trustees, in fact, oversee their ownership responsibilities.   But no single person owns the campus or the buildings.   The same idea pertains to national parks.   All Americans, in effect, own Yosemite...

In addition to being involved in the world of religion and spirituality, I also have been fairly involved in the world of innovation.   Much of this grew out of collegial work that I have done with a friend of mine.   I will admit that I never thought too much about innovation before he and I began doing some thinking and, then, some writing on the topic of innovation.   A couple things occurred to me in the process.   In the first place I realized that it did not matter too much whether I used the word, innovation.   In fact, I have been fairly innovative much of my life.   When I learned the meaning of the language of innovation and looked at my experience, I recognized there was a match.   Part of my misunderstanding was thinking that innovation was solely a business word.   I knew businesses needed to be innovative---especially in today’s climate.   And since I was not in business, the language of innovation did not apply to me. ...

I am always delighted to meet someone who has been spiritual for decades.  Perhaps it is because I spend a great deal of my time with younger folks.  Even if a college-age student has been religious for quite a while, that still pales in comparison with an eighty or ninety-year old person who has “been at it” for decades.  Most college-age students simply have not lived long enough to experience the serious ups and downs of life.  On the other hand, if you have lived eighty years, chances are you have seen a great deal. I am intrigued to know how the old-timers manage to hang in there with their spiritual practices.  What sustains them over the years?  In my own Quaker tradition we talk about “dry places.”  These are the times of the life of the spirit when nothing seems to be happening.  We may spend time in prayer, but there seems to be no connection.  We may meditate regularly, but to no real avail.  We practice, but our spirits ...

It is with some trepidation that I use “spiritual direction” as the title for this inspirational reflection.  It is not that I am against spiritual direction.  In fact, I am very much for it!  I figure most of us would be better off with some spiritual direction.  I know I would.  So what’s my trepidation?  It comes from my Quaker heritage….more about that in a minute.             When you see the term, “spiritual direction,” you could take it in a couple ways.  One way to take the term is to see it literally.  We all know what the word, “direction,” means.  It means north, over there, up there, etc.  Direction points to some space or place.  Direction is someplace besides here.  When we ask for directions, we are asking how to get there.  In the old days we consulted maps.  Maps charted the course we could take to get to a desired place.  Now we use tec...

So often, my spiritual education comes in ways I could not have imagined.  I appreciate the fact that I continue to be spiritually educated.  Part of me worries that I could have long periods of life when no education was happening.  I understand “dry periods,” as we Quakers describe those times when there seems to be no presence or movement of the Spirit.  During these times, I am content to wait, to stay disciplined and be engaged in the process.             My spiritual education is fairly predictable as a happening.  What is unpredictable is the particular kind of education I might receive.  Here variety seems to be the fare of the day.  I am quite content with that.  Who am I always to know what I need to know?  As long as I keep learning, then I will be true to the spirit of the Latin and Greek words for “disciple,” namely a “student” or “learner.”     ...

Sometimes I read something simply because of the person who wrote the piece.   It is typical for humans to have their preferences.   Some people like specific musical groups.   Others are drawn to particular artists.   I am a person who likes specific authors.   In fact, I have a number of favorite authors.   There are the obvious favorites like the late monk, Thomas Merton.   He is pretty famous, which means many people know him.   Another favorite of mine is Paul Knitter.   Knitter has just retired from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.   He is a long-time professor and scholar who is not as famous as folks like Merton.   But he has had a long, distinguished career shaping the   ways young folks think about life and their world. Knitter was one of the earlier people involved in the ecumenical and interfaith conversations.   When I say ecumenical, primarily I mean the interaction and dialogue among diffe...

I had a recent trip out of town.   It was a pleasant trip to a place I very much like to visit.   Since I was traveling for an organization I represent, it was not going to cost me much, except the time I would spend away from campus and from my friends.   I always miss that, but the trade-off is not bad.   I get to meet new people and, maybe, see some old friends.   So off I went.             I like being in different cities.   Each city has its own characteristics.   Often there is a different offering of restaurants---sometimes with local ethnic fare.   I like experimenting with different options.   It is on trips like this, I realize again how very provincial my growing up on an Indiana farm really was.   I don’t lament that, but I am grateful that I have begun to experience a much bigger world.   I am not sure we can understand and appreciate just how big and diverse...