Weekly Messages
The Clutch of Death (Epilogue)
Today, we conclude our lesson on "The Clutch of Death" with these remarks on how the beliefs, sensibilities, and expectations of our families-of-origin can act as the greatest block to our soul's freedom. In Luke 14, several paragraphs after Jesus introduced the idea...
The Clutch of Death (part 6)
One of the ancient spiritual paths goes by an old name... "mortification." It means to put to death. Once we see that our false narratives, our faulty Life-Stories are strangling the life out of us, we want to turn the tables and put that clutching instinct to death...
The Clutch of Death (part 5)
Look at the ravens, Jesus said. They're free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description. They're care-free in the care of God... And you! You count far more. As we're considering how to experience the freedom and connection to Divine Life Jesus taught was...
The Clutch of Death (part 4)
As we continue our lesson on the Clutch of Death, we come to where we've been heading from the beginning... one of Jesus' lessons from Luke 12. It's a section in which Jesus teaches how easily our interior narratives derail us into chasing after things which in the...
The Clutch of Death (part 3)
Today we continue our lesson "The Clutch of Death." We've seen how we tend to clutch at people, things, and circumstances at the expense of our freedom and connecting to our truest, Divine selves. We do this because our "Life-Stories," the narratives that drive our...
The Clutch of Death (part 2)
How does one begin the journey from a Life-Story that breeds stress, anxiety, pressure, and "the clutch of death," to a Life-Story that breeds peace, freedom, Life and Light? The ancients designed a practice just for that. It's called "detachment." It's the practice...
The Clutch of Death (part 1)
The deep quest of the human heart is for freedom and Divine Life. The problem is that we get so easily distracted from this quest by impulses and instincts that bubble up from inside us. We all carry around Life-Stories, or framing narratives that dictate our...
Relax! Your Journey is in Good Hands
Next week I'm going to begin a lesson "The Clutch of Death." I'll talk about how when we try and hang on to happiness, try to clutch the things we desire, while we may attain fleeting moments of pleasure, true and abiding happiness will elude us. As preamble to that...
God is a noun, right? Not a verb, right?
I am sharing some insights about the nature of God from my thoughts and meetings over the last several weeks. Doug
Jan 2011 Community Meeting
Presented by Michelle Carter and the NRCC Church Council.
New Year 2011
There's a difference between making a New Year's resolution, and participating in the natural process of spiritual renewal. Have a listen. Doug
Advent 2010: Home for Christmas
At Christmas time, being home is a value for many. But what is "home?" We long for it, but it's a moving target. The people and things we associate with "home" are always changing, so "home" never stays the same. We long for something that is always evaporating...
Advent 2010: Failure? There Is No Stinking Failure!
I teach my kids all the time that they cannot not fail in life. I tell them they will embarrass themselves. They will shame themselves. They will fall into something they can't believe they've fallen into. The measure of your soul isn't how well you avoid failure...
Advent 2010: On Roosters and Readiness
One of the most moving stories I've read comes from a memoir of a minister who lived about the time I was born. It involves a rooster and his great shame. It also involves a call to us for readiness and redemption. Have a listen. Doug
Thanksgiving 2010 (part 2)
Continuing where we left off last week, we consider how gratitude, expressed in good works, is manifest in our lives. Have a listen. Doug
Thanksgiving 2010 (part 1)
A few years ago, our family stopped sharing around the Thanksgiving table the things we were grateful for. Our kids were getting older, the crowd at the table was getting larger, and it started feeling contrived, so I stopped bringing it up (I think everybody has...
The Central Organizing Principle of Life in God
We pause between these lessons, to review an important spiritual principle in our community's history... "The Central Organizing Principle of Life in God is the Indwelling Spirit." Now if you come from the Charismatic tradition and think you know what those words...
The Suffocating Power of Self (part 4)
Last week, we made the outrageous claim that God's judgment is a good thing. Who knew? This week, we go further by asking how we can invite this judgment upon ourselves. Not only are we claiming to want God's good judgment, now we're paying a pretty steep price to...
The Suffocating Power of Self (part 3)
Ps. 98 says the the judgment of God is a good thing. Go figure! How could coming up short, and then hearing about it from God be good? In this lesson, we see that we've really misunderstood the whole idea of "the judgment of God." It's a gift, it's a treasure, and...
The Suffocating Power of Self (part 2)
We continue thinking about what we can learn from Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan, and his cryptic remarks about "eternal life." What is eternal life? How does one access it? Turns out, it has very little to do with the afterlife as so many assume. Have a listen....
The Suffocating Power of Self (part 1)
In the last lesson, we looked at "the suffocating power of stuff." An extension of the same thinking that went into that lesson applies to this one. In this lesson we look at how we orient ourselves to life by looking through the lens of what's good for me, what's...
The Suffocating Power of Stuff (4 of 4)
Today, we conclude this lesson on the suffocating power of stuff. We began the lesson with Jesus' teaching in Mt. 6 on stuff, and an analysis of why it is so difficult for us, living under the socio-economic system of consumerism, to heed Jesus' words. We conclude...
The Suffocating Power of Stuff (part 3)
That we are suffocated by stuff in a literal sense is not the biggest problem we face. Yes, it's true that possessing too many things stifles and loads us down, but the more dangerous form of suffocation, is the mindset, the heartset, that believes we'll find...
The Suffocating Power of Stuff (part 2)
Dumbing down grownups, capturing children early and indenturing them into the obligations of consumerism, and misrepresenting the utility of stuff... these are the lengths our economic system goes to sell us stuff. And in the face of that, Jesus tells us that stuff is...