WHILE I AM NOT A MYSTIC, I HAVE SPENT MOST OF MY ADULT LIFE STUDYING (directly and indirectly) both religious experience in general and mysticism in particular. Right now, I’m re-reading, for at least the fourth time, The Cloud of Unknowing, a classic 14th century English manual of Christian contemplative prayer. This will be the …
Finding the Way to a More Abundant Life
IN THE VIOLENT PUSH AND SHOVE OF OPPOSING BODIES in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, one sign read, “JESUS SAVES.” The sign seemed profoundly out of place, in spite of its comforting promise. Among other things, the sign suggested the political cause the sign carrier was fighting for was blessed by Jesus. This statement, …
Here’s How Jungian Psychology Feeds the Soul
EXPERIMENTAL AND BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGIES DENY THE SOUL, and psychoanalytic psychologies explain away meaning. Jungian psychology does neither. Instead, it maps out a path toward a post-critical, re-enchantment of life. In our post-Enlightenment, postmodern world, psychology should help us understand the soul, because “psyche” means “soul.” Unfortunately, experimental and behavioral psychologies ignore the soul altogether by …
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Different Roads, One Path
AS THE WAR AGAINST FASCIST IMPERIALISM REACHED ITS CLIMAX around the world in 1944-45, Aldous Huxley was in southern California publishing The Perennial Philosophy. The book, still in print and now a popular classic in the comparative study of religion, spells out what Huxley called the “highest common factor” in the world’s religions. While differences …
Change a Word, Change the Cosmos
“IN THE BEGINNING” IS NOT HOW THE BIBLE ACTUALLY OPENS in the Hebrew text that stands behind our oh so familiar English translation. The Hebrew reads “in a beginning” or “in beginning.” I noticed the discrepancy while learning biblical Hebrew, and when I asked the instructor about it, he dismissed it as nothing but a …
The Magi Didn’t See Shepherds at a Manger
EVEN THOUGH CHRISTMAS PAGEANTS BRING THEM TOGETHER, the wise men and the shepherds appear in separate nativity stories, one in the Gospel of Matthew, the other in the Gospel of Luke. The two stories are significantly different, but they deliver the same truth, the same subversive message: The kingdom of God has arrived to overthrow …
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Embracing Doubt on the Spiritual Path
CONTRARY TO WHAT MIGHT SEEM OBVIOUS, DOUBT ISN’T THE ENEMY OF FAITH. Certainty is. In fact, doubt and faith, properly understood, are complementary drivers in a dialectic of growth. Certainty, on the other hand, stalls growth and often weakens faith. The primary problem behind our common misunderstanding of doubt and faith is our tendency to …
When Something Ordinary Is Extraordinary
SOMETIMES SOMETHING HAPPENS that makes no sense, but isn’t nonsense. Instead, it seems eerily significant; uncanny, yet meaningful. You know it’s just a coincidence, but it feels like a touch of enchantment, like the flow of Dao, like providence or maybe fate. A meaningful coincidence like that, according to Carl Jung, is synchronicity at work …
A Moon Shadow Dancing
TWICE, JESUS TELLS THE CROWD, “I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE” (Jn. 6:35, 48) — and the image glows with the radiance of moonlight, giving us a surprising glimpse of the feminine face of Christ. The twin proclamations reveal the essence of the “Bread of Life Discourse” (Jn. 6:25-59). The evangelist has Jesus deliver this …
Mist on a Breeze #3
Lady Wisdom describes her role in creation: YHWH created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth, When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no …
Soul Spirit Wisdom 