Something Bigger than Oneself

There's been a lot of talk in the media lately about how ISIS is recruiting young men and women from Western countries, young adults who are searching for some meaning in their lives.  They are reportedly searching for "something bigger than themselves" with which to be affiliated, to live for, and to die for.  What they are gravitating to is a 10-cent version of Islam, but while they may perceive their quest to be a religious one, ISIS does not appear to preach any form of Islam that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, would recognize.

The Indestructible Core

Has anyone else ever received the spiritual blow to your head, or heart, or ego, the one that turns everything upside down?  It's happened to me a couple of times, and I sometimes call it the "cosmic 2 x 4," it can hit that hard.

This one was completely unexpected.  A few weeks ago. the wonderful Elizabeth Gilbert posted a quick exchange from a recent interview onto her Facebook page.  At a public event, an attendee walked to the microphone and asked, "What do you know more than anything?" 

Back to School

It's September, and for us students and teachers, that means getting back to the work of teaching and learning.  For the past several years I have actively been and done both things, teaching in a small college as an adjunct assistant professor in Religious Studies, as well as crafting my doctoral dissertation on three texts that tell the stories of early medieval Celtic (and one Anglo-Saxon) saints.  Both endeavors are stimulating and inspiring, both get my intellectual juices flowing. And what's particularly fascinating is that in both settings I find, in Wesley's words, my heart strangely warmed.

Soul & Psyche 4: The New Sacred Awareness

David Tacey concludes his exploration of Jung, spirituality and religion with a short chapter which examines Jung's struggle over time to define his relationship with religion in general, and Christianity in particular.  It was in every way a vexed and painful relationship, covering two thirds of the twentieth century, a time in which religion and the life of the spirit were in great flux, certainly in the West, and arguably around the world.  We are living with the consequences of that flux today as the world writhes with the pain of racial, ethnic, and religious conflicts.  I think there are connections to be made, and I will attempt to make some of them here.

Encounters with God

I'm taking a short break from Jung (although he slips in at the end, as you'll see) to share a sermon I was privileged to give at the First Baptist Church of Westwood, Massachusetts yesterday.  It was the second in a two-part series based on the notion of encountering God in various ways.  The first part was preached last Sunday by my wonderful husband, speaking about Jacob at the Jabbok, and I picked up the theme of encounter with the story of Elijah and the "sound of sheer silence."

Enjoy!  Next post will wrap up the series on Jung, religion and spirituality.

Soul & Psyche, 3

Greetings, Dear Ones,

I am returning once again to meditating upon David Tacey's The Darkening Spirit,an exploration of Jungian spirituality and religious life.  In chapter four, which Tacey calls, "Jung and the Prophetic Life," I believe he is making a useful distinction, but using misleading terms to identify the two "sides" he seeks to distinguish.

Tacey describes Jung as a prophet, speaking on behalf of a God who no longer comfortably inhabits the narrow confines of institutional Christian life.  He explains, "...what the Church calls God is not a description of his [God's] character, but an interpretation of his nature. As an interpretation, it is relative, not absolute, and thus liable to error and correction."  It is the role of the prophet, both in biblical history and in the present time, to call attention to what Tacey calls "the provisional nature of religious discourse," and to point beyond that provisional interpretation of God to the Divinity that transcends but still speaks to the human condition.

Soul & Psyche, 2

Greetings, Dear Ones,

This post will pick up from the previous one, reflecting on ideas from The Darkening Spirit, by David Tacey.  Tacey's book is an exploration of the ideas of C.G. Jung on religion and spirituality, and promises a proposal for what religion might begin to look like in the future.  I have read the first four chapters, and find much to savor in these pages, some of which I will be chewing on in this blog.

One initial question has to do with why it is even necessary to imagine "what religion might look like in the future?"  Hasn't the Church always been what it is?  A place for worship and service, where some people lead and most people follow, and between the vestry and the choir and Sunday School most people find a place to fit in?  Well, I haven't been active in any institutional churches for about a decade now, but from what I hear from friends in the field, this form of "being Church," while it is still very much alive and well in some corners, is either dwindling in numbers or chronically tied up in controversy in others.  And all the while the voices of modern (and post-modern) atheism are loudly crying that religion is not only the opiate of the masses, but the cause of much of the pain and misery in the world.  In such an environment, how could religion simply keep on as it has?  Bidden or unbidden, change will come.