Weekly Messages
Tikkun Olam
Nope. That's not a typo. Tikkun olam is a thing. A real thing. An ancient thing. When we set ourselves to the ancient practices of listening, the accumulated experience of those gone before us in our tradition gives us a set of expectations about some of the things...
Listening: It’s Hard . . . But Not That Hard (2)
We continue introducing our summer focus on the spiritual practice of listening. This summer, we're focusing on the art of spiritual listening. If you’re in Raleigh, I encourage you to be part of our Sundays at 1417 Clifton St. in Raleigh, to experience the practices...
Listening: It’s Hard . . . But Not That Hard (1)
We begin this week, a new lesson on the spiritual practice of listening. We're combining the lesson with a summer of practicing the art of listening together. If you're in Raleigh, I encourage you to be part of our Sundays at 1417 Clifton St. in Raleigh, to...
Expanding God’s Table – John Pavlovitz
By John Pavlovitz One of the images that most attracted me to church was the table of God where all were congregated together in unity. However, the church has done a lot since the time of Jesus to make the table of God smaller and more exclusive. We owe it to those...
Revisiting: The 2-Step Dance of the Spiritual Journey
Desire. Pay Attention. It's one of the central ways we talk about finding our way forward on the spiritual journey. Have a listen, Doug
Revisiting: We Resolve Conflict (2)
We continue looking at how the story we tell ourselves about sin profoundly shapes our instinct about ourselves, about one another, and about how we deal with the divided lives we all live. In particular, we explore how it affects the instincts we bring to resolving...
Revisiting: We Resolve Conflict (1)
As we've seen the story we tell ourselves about sin profoundly shapes our instinct about ourselves, about one another, and about how we deal with the divided lives we all live. Turns out, the story we tell ourselves about sin impacts how we approach conflict...
Revisiting: Sin Is Not That Big A Deal (4)
It's not a big deal (listen to the last three lessons), but it's a deal. It's a "ruin-our-lives" kind of deal. So we need to deal with it. When we tell ourselves that our defining center is ugly, ugly, sin-consciousness, we tend to deal with it one way. When we tell...
Revisiting: Sin Is Not That Big A Deal (3)
It's not a big deal (listen to the last two lessons), but it's a deal. It's a "ruin-our-lives" kind of deal. So we need to deal with it. When we tell ourselves one story about what sin is, we deal with it one way. Another story. Another way. In the 5th century, Rome...
Revisiting: Sin Is Not That Big A Deal (2)
We saw last time, it's counter-intuitive, but when we make sin a bigger deal than it is, we don't deal with it as effectively as we could. In today's lesson, we lay some term-defining groundwork that will help us figure out how to deal with it effectively. Have a...
Revisiting: Sin Is Not That Big A Deal (1)
Counter-intuitively, when we make sin a bigger deal than it is, we don't deal with it as effectively as we could. Getting sin out of our lives is not the point of the spiritual journey, it's the by-product. Have a listen, Doug
Easter 2016
As we do each year, in this lesson we highlight a dimension of our ancient story, and how it impacts our daily lives. This year we focus on the spiritual principle of oneness -- how it is rooted in Easter, and how it affects the lives we live. Have a listen, Doug...
Our Three Faces – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu
Revisiting: We’re Made of the Same Stuff God Is
We say God is good, we are safe. Really? That's hogwash...Unless we broaden our framework of the most fundamental things about being human. Have a listen, Doug
Revisiting: Yin and Yang, Freedom and Responsibility
As we begin this new season of our community life together, we are going over some of the significant lessons that have shaped our life together. Our history informs our future. Today, we talk about two important truths that grant us both freedom and responsibility....
Hospitality — and Conflict
Here is Doug’s message for Feb 21, 2016 Have a listen.
Radical Inclusion of “The Other”
To talk about this radical version of hospitality—without also talking about the transformative spiritual journey… Well, that’s just a non-starter. We can’t do – what we can’t do. And we can’t do it – unless we first awaken to a reservoir deep within us – that most...
A Seminal Tale: Abraham and "The Other"
Have a listen, Doug
One of Our Important Tribal Myths
We Christians would have become just another sectarian religious group -- if it hadn't been for a really important thing on a really important day. It's one of our most important stories. Have a listen, Doug
Yeah! Not As Easy As It Sounds (Hospitality)
If hospitality is about tea cozies and finger sandwiches, it'd just be a matter of tidying up the house and having people over. But in the spiritual tradition, hospitality is a much more demanding proposition. It means "radical inclusion of the other, the outsider,...
Jesus and the Knuckleheads: A Study in Un-Gentleness
"The Prince of Peace..." That's one of the things our tradition calls Jesus. Which is certainly an apt description... Unless your religious posture was to out-group others... In which case, he had some rather choice words. Have a listen, Doug...
Radical Inclusion: The Three Magi
The Twelve Days of Christmas doesn't mean much any more. But back in the day, each of the days celebrated an important story -- the last day, the story of the three magi. It is a story about God abolishing sectarianism. What? Yep. It's a story about Divine Life,...
A New Year Reflection
. Janus. The Roman god of transitions.
Advent 3: The Art of Encouragement (Mary and Elizabeth)