Today’s Gospel reading from St. Luke is the well-known passage where Jesus visits the home of Martha and Mary. While Martha is running around doing chores, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, listening to him speak. When Mary complains to Jesus, asking him to instruct Mary to help her, Jesus replies, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Now, doubtless some of Martha’s tasks were quite important and I do not think Jesus meant to imply by his words that we completely lay aside all of our obligations – taking care of our children, putting effort into our jobs, etc. – and sit around all day
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Stop, Sit, Listen
In the course of working on one of the books I’m writing this year, I’ve been re-reading my notes from various teachings of Buddhist lamas – some my own notes from teachings I attended when I lived in Nepal and India and others from tapes of talks I listened to during that same time. One of the talks I just read was a commentary on a text called the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation
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Dealing with Complaints and Criticisms
I just finished reading Brother David Steindl-Rast’s lastest book, Deeper than Words: Living the Apostle’s Creed . The Creed expresses faith in Christian terms, and Brother David doesn’t try to suggest otherwise.
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Faith and Belief
Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy: Spirituality in Daily Life, Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron A kind heart is one of the principal things we are trying to develop. If we run around childishly telling others, “I’m this religion, and you’re that religion.
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Chocolate Frosting and Garbage, Thubten Chodron Buddhist quote
I recently enjoyed reading The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne. In the book they suggest that the role of the pastor has shifted from religious service provider to CEO in many churches. But they also suggest there needs to be a further shift, to trainer (i.e.
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Job Description?
Today’s guest post comes to us from our Senior Norwegian correspondent Hilde Løvdal, who posted here last year on ” The Adventures of a Norwegian in Colorado Springs .” Today she sends her exploration of the influence of contemporary Christian music in her homeland. People often ask me why I am so fascinated by American evangelicalism
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The Oslo Soul Children and the Cowboy Twins
Last night I read the homily given by Archbishop Oscar Romero during a Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday in 1977, which spoke about the way in which the day’s celebration reminds us of the great works of the Holy Spirit. One of the works of the Holy Spirit Romero highlighted was the transmission of the “unique priesthood of Christ, who is also king and prophet” to those who have been baptized, a transmission that “enables them to be a priestly, royal and prophetic people.” We don’t tend to remember and don’t always take seriously the idea that when we were baptized, we received an anointing with chrism as “a visible representation of the fact that this child of the flesh was incorporated into the Church, into the People of God, into this priestly, royal and prophetic people.” Yet it is something that is important to remember
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Priest, Prophet and King
As I wrote the other day, one of the books I am currently reading is Brother David Steindl-Rast’s, Deeper than Words , each chapter of which is devoted to a different line of the Apostles’ Creed. The first part of each chapter is his attempt to “pry open the hard shell of preconceived notions that tend to form around set expressions we hear or use too often.” Among the chapters that have really struck me is the one titled “Suffered Under Pontius Pilate.” Because Brother Daviid’s central claim is that the Creed is not “an enumeration of facts that Christians hold to be true, but a multifaceted profession of faith in God,” he views the claim in the Creed that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate” as something that must have significance beyond the mere historical reality that a man named Jesus suffered under a representative of the Roman Empire named Pilate. Instead, the juxtaposition of this line with the preceding claim that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary draws our attention to opposite poles: there a woman who gives life, here, the man who kills; there, the vulnerable virgin, here, the powerful politician; there, a new beginning in the power of the Spirit, here, its destruction by the spirit of power
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Suffered Under Pontius Pilate
For my newsletter readers: It turns out that the way I’ve been sending out this newsletter over the past 7 (!) years is becoming too labor intensive.
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Newsletter update & New spiritual stuff on squidoo and Katinka Hesselink Net
Paul Harvey Ever wondered about the philosophy and business model of the spirituality catch-all website Belief.net. And who exactly owned it anyway? Yeah, neither did I
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Selling God on the Net: Beliefnet’s Affinity Group