Weekly Topic

We’ll share a spiritual conversation together this week about “Making God in our Image, does it hurt or help?”

1. Given the incomprehensibility of God, many find it hard to relate to such an unknown.  How comfortable are you with the unknown?  Does God being unknown cause you to fear God?  Can you trust a deep unknowable wisdom, or is it more helpful to your spiritual journey to Humanize God, so you can relate to God?
2. If God is unknowable, does this cause anger for you when you see what happens in the world around you?  Do you attribute human attributes to God like anger or judgment?  Does this draw you closer to God or distance you?
3. Does humanizing God allow you to more easily imagine God’s joy, or feel God loves you?  Are you able to partner in your spiritual journey with an unknowable God?   What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?  What role can community play in this?
4. What new concepts have you heard in this conversation that you will take with you to explore?  How might it help you?
5. What will you let go of as a result the chat?  What were you grateful to discuss or is there anyone or anything said you would like to acknowledge.

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Optional Resources for this Conversation

• Podcast — Rethinking God in the Christian Perspective — Anthropomorphism
• Video — Dr. Amit Goswami, Physicist, on God as Consciousness with which we are one
• Poem — Psalms Poem on the universal and supportive presence of God
• Meditation — Taoist Teaching on the Mystery of Tao
• Reasoning — Buddhist argument that attachment, not God, is our sorrow’s cause

Print the spiritual conversation starter –>Making God in our own Image

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “Who is God to You, Now?”

1. When asking who is God, adding the phrase “to you” is critical, since there are as many views of God as there are people on the planet. “Now” is just as important to add to the question, since our view of who God is and God’s role in our lives tends to evolve over the course of our Spiritual Journeys.  So, let’s talk about who is God to you, now?
2. How has that changed over time?  Is your current view of God helping your spiritual journey, or hindering it, and why?
3. What other views of God have you explored that might lead to a definition of God which is more supportive of your Spiritual Journey?  What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?
4. What views of God or ideas have you heard about in this conversation that you will take with you to explore?  How might it help you?
5. What will you let go of as a result the chat?  What were you grateful to discuss or is there anyone you would like to acknowledge.

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Optional Resources for this Conversation

• Podcast — Rethinking God in the Christian Perspective
• Video — Dr. Amit Goswami, Physicist, on God as Consciousness with which we are one
• Poem — Psalms Poem on the universal and supportive presence of God
• Meditation — Taoist Teaching on the Foundation Tao before God
• Reasoning — Buddhist argument that attachment, not God, is our sorrow’s cause

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “The Other Side of Power 3: Renewing our Minds.”

“Meta-noia.”  It’s a Greek word used in our ancient texts.  It means to change our thinking, to go through one state or state of mind, and come out on the other side with another.  It’s an important spiritual concept, to leave an empty, lesser way of thinking, and emerge into a more enlightened, higher way of thinking.  To exercise power well, we need renewed minds.  How do we stop and identify the parts of our mind that tell a  wrong story about our worth?  How do we change our minds and identify with people we previously considered outcasts in society?  How do we “humanize” people that carry conflicting world view and generate better understanding about ideas we disagree?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “The Other Side of Power:  Radical Underpinnings of Power”

In Jesus’ time, Jews under Roman rule had to continually compete for social standing by elevating themselves and putting each other down. Sound familiar? At the core of who we are, we feel that we are not precious. As long as we feel this way, we will be competing with one another. How do we seek internal fulfillment and this preciousness for ourselves? How do we deal with the fear in our life to reach that fulfillment? How do we find our connection to the divine nature in each of us so we can accept Jesus’s invitation to each of us?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “The Other Side of Power (Intro)”

When Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, he was doing something more profound than is typically considered.  He was radically upending the normative dynamic of human relationships.  How can we use our resources and advantages to serve people with less?  How do we change our roles today to not dominant our fellow man?  What ways can we value everyone equally?  How do we eliminate the “pecking orders” we have in our lives?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “The Abuse of Power, The Limits of Common Sense”

Theoretical physicists are imagining all kinds of wild mathematical formulations to explain the most fundamental nature of reality.  When they do, they turn around and test their equations with super-colliders, and it turns out…  they’re right!  How wild is that?  Why is it that common sense doesn’t always explain the world as it really is?  The teachings of Jesus, the saints, and sages do the same.  They give us descriptions of reality as it is, that make no common sense.  When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, and walk away from the “getting-a-win” way of relating to them, it makes us vulnerable, unsafe, and it goes against every survival instinct we have — so we tend to ignore Jesus.  Why do Jesus and so many others recommend a love that is so against our common sense?  Is it the ancient wisdom that is skewed, or perhaps our common sense and perception?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “The Abuse of Power, The Power of Moral Imagination”

We continue talking about why it’s so difficult for us to hear and heed the teaching of Jesus on power dynamics.  Have you noticed how your instincts for self-protection or self-promotion run counter to His teaching?  Can you do a thought experiment, and see how your ability to use your imagination is profoundly different when you are dealing with a friend than with a rival?  How can you embrace the teachings of Jesus and grow in your ability to extend the same moral imagination to rivals as you do for your friends?  Can you imagine another’s heart?  How does it change you when you do?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about “The Abuse of Power, We’re on the same side for goodness sake!”

The idea of seeing ourselves as part of a whole rather than separate individuals has many implications if we would follow Jesus’ teaching about loving our neighbors, ourselves, and our enemies.   If we Westerners would love our enemies, what does this mean to our view of the Muslim states?  If we see them as a “them,” and us as an “us,” how does a loss for one or the other actually harm both?  Consider the same between upper class and lower class, or in group vs out group.   What kind of stress and depression is created by inequities or us vs them mentalities?  When we see the whole of which we are part, how does it change our instincts or inform our actions?  If we instead see them as part of a whole, of which we are a part,  can we see how supporting improving the social gaps in a Muslim state can improve the interests of all of us?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about how “The Abuse of Power, Abused and Not Even Knowing It”.

When we see each other through a pattern of separateness, we instinctively have to see someone as being on top vs bottom, or benefiting at the expense of another.  What does this mean to the way we relate between genders, classes, sects, and so on?  What abuse occurs and is viewed as normal (commanding over others, elitism,, etc)?  Can we take on a superior view of reality, that we are expressions of a single Divine being?  If you follow the message of Jesus and love your neighbor as you love yourself, or if you do good for your enemy, and extend that one-ness into our lives, how are we and our world changed?  When we see each other as one, what benefits and opportunities does this create?  How does it change our spiritual journey?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about how “The Abuse of Power, One-ness verses Two-ness”.

Does your framing story or view of life see humanity as one, or separate?  How does your core narrative then influence your approach to life, and especially relationships?  What does this do to our power dynamics between one another?  Can you love your neighbor as you love yourself?  Consider the teachings of Jesus, Paul, and even the scientific framework of Einstein, what can you learn from them about power and one-ness?  How can we change toxic thinking, abusive use of power, and adopt a more loving “one-ness” story?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

We’ll share a conversation together this week about how “Life is like a game of Free Cell”.
Have you ever played Free Cell?  Have you ever thought that Free Cell was like life?  What are the similarities?  Is it helpful to you to understand that people’s journeys can be different than yours (what they need to become mature is different than what you need to become mature)?  Is it helpful to understand that another person can be mature and not look like you?  Did you happen to remember a need that you could identify with when Robin mentioned Enneagram model?  Do you remember identifying more strongly with one more than another?  If you look at the way you dress, eat, and self-talk, what does that tell you about your level of self love?

What role can community play in this? What can quiet space, or meditation do to help?

Let’s share a spiritual conversation on this subject, and hear your stories of your walk with God this week. What is stirring in your heart?

Join the spiritual conversation now on Facebook. Join us for an upcoming conversation in person.

Listen below.

If you don’t have a regular meditation practice, have a listen. If you thought meditation wasn’t something Christian’s could or should do, this is especially interesting to hear!

[Download mp3]