The Spiral Staircase [SSL172]

Today, I’m featuring excerpts on belief and compassion from the memoir by noted religious historian Karen Armstrong The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness . Get access to my notes and other links for this episode at the support page here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43388956 Listen now with the AUDIO PLAYER:

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Gaining Wholeness, Renewal, and Healing the World [SSL117]

Welcome to another Wednesday audio delivery of Spark My Muse. This is Soul School Lesson 117 [SSL117]


Some of this episode is directly inspired from Karen Armstrong’s work and includes quotes from this amazing book. Find all the EXTRAS, links, and useful info for this episode HERE. Plus, get Lisa’s forthcoming book when you contribute $5 or more.
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Eps 82: Becoming Wise, my conversation with special guest, Krista Tippett

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Today, my guest is Krista Tippett.kristatippet
Krista is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times bestselling author. She is the host of On Being, a radio show and podcast distributed to more than 400 stations across the country, a program which often ranks among the top 50 podcasts on iTunes. Krista is the author of several books, including, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, published in April, 2016.

In 2014, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal at a special ceremony at the White House, and honored by President Barack Obama for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom.”


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SHOW NOTES

MIN 1

The twist on the question Krista usually asks her guests.

Silvia Borstien

Our children are watching us more than they are listening to us

Learning to not see people with distinctions and to not see people difference.

MIN 5:30

Nostalgic and loving view of religion of the grandfather. Hymns

MIN 7

Her own spiritual practice

Karen Armstrong – my work is my prayer

Krista writing a prayer, bare bones liturgy, gratitude,

“I don’t know what I mean when I say I pray, but there is something essential and grounding about having this as part of my life.”

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Prayer is also an orientation to mystery. My prayer now has very little to do with asking for things. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 12:00

Going to Divinity School in the 1990s and the life of the mind and keeping the eyes of a journalist on the world. The important issues of theology and human life were discussions that were missing in public life.

MIN 16:00

Religion, politics, and values

MIN 19:30

The puzzle about human beings and doing “what we ought”, and power, agency, and will and choice, and being people of integrity that need cultivation and our need for each other.

MIN 21:30

We can value that we have the knowledge that we know what’s right and we can learn to get companion for ourselves.

MIN 23:00

Does one need to suffer to become wise?

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Suffering is not optional. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Suffering offers rich ground for becoming more wise but it can take generations. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 24:30

Krista on her own depression and how it deepened her wisdom.

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Suffering is seedbed of wisdom but not the only seedbed of wisdom. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 26:00

Hefty wisdom and also the kind of wisdom children possess.

MIN 28:00

How have the wisest people you’ve spoken to continued to learn and grow in wisdom?

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Wise people find a way to stay soft in the face of what ever life will present next.via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]This lessens the suffering.

MIN 30:00

Hope is borne of struggle

A toughness and courage

MIN 32:00

The connection of Empathy and Wisdom and how it’s embodied.

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Wisdom is a quality of presence. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]If we walk through our sufferings and losses desiring to learn from them and to grow and deepen, empathy is a natural effect. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 35:00

The most foolish people get all the attention.

As a culture we seem to be growing distance from each other and less empathic–what can be done?

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Fear is an empathy killer. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

We can become paralyzed and think we can’t do anything.

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]If many of us could take up the calling to be ‘calmers of fear’ and really close to home. via @kristatippett[/ictt-tweet-inline]

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]We really need to be leaning into the better angels of our nature to stand up to the challenges of the 21st century together in common life.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 39:00

We are talking about work that is stitching a new fabric of common life that has to start at a very personal level.

Being a non-anxious presence for others

MIN 41:00

We are not taught to be a non anxious presence as powerful people or to be powerful this way and we need more postures in our common spaces; and it won’t feel intuitive.

MIN 43:00

Human drama will remain after the (2016) election and we have to be equipping our selves to reckon with that and be present to that.

MIN 44:00

Krista answering the “so what” question for herself in public life and presence in the world and moving away for being the On Being organizational direction.


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Eps 72: Deconstructionists RECAP with Adam & John on Jack Caputo

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THEY ARE BACK.
Adam Narloch and John Williamson of the Deconstructionist Podcast!

deconstruct

I put lots of effort into the show notes so they are amazing and helpful for you.
SO. MANY. LINKS.
Scroll down for those and enjoy the show!

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Hear Adam and John the previous time they came on the Spark My Muse show: Episode 59.


SHOW NOTES for Episode 72

It’s a special podcast powwow with Adam and John as we deconstruct / unpack their recent conversation with remarkable guest John D. Caputo!
(often referred to as Jack)

Min 2
“What Would Jesus Deconstruct” by Jack Caputo

(John) On Jack Caputo and his work related to Philosopher Jacques Derrida

The Weakness of God – by Jack Caputo

Other books by John D. Caputojack_Caputo

MIN 3:30

The meaning of “Weak Theology”

(briefly explained)

Tragedies bring out the questions of Theodicy (or so-called “weak theology”) and the questions of why good God would allow humans to suffer. We talk about how we perceive weakness compared to how God might encounter or solve that. It’s a loving term of weakness.

Looking at Jesus dying on the cross as a metaphor for weakness. (sacrifice)

Violence begets more violence.
The solution is a surprising one.

MIN 6:30

(Adam)

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Foolishness of God is the great reversal and is the premise of weak theology.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

Michel Foucault on knowledge and power

MIN 8:20
Why the Deconstructionist podcast is not heterodox or counter-orthodoxy or heretical:

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Theology isn’t something you can capture and freeze.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

Beliefs are constructed through history are relatively stable (this is why they last throughout time) but they are also relatively unstable then too. It’s both dangerous to mess with the beliefs and dangerous to keep them frozen too.

MIN 10

(John) The nugget John found in the conversation:

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Deconstruction is not a drive-by shooting.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

• Karen Armstrong’s work – (books)

Ancient people, scribes, leaders, and rabbi’s were always struggling with how to interpret scripture.

MIN 13:00
The cultural legacy of a modernity mindset is to think that the Bible could be seen as inerrant.

The re-imagining of the Scriptures.

MIN 13:30

(Adam)

Theo-poetics

It’s not that we have to destroy it but we have to continue to to image and expose the Scripture to its own future.

MIN 15:00

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]If Justice or Hospitality exists, it calls to us. It’s something we imagine and pray for and long for. God doesn’t exist, God insists.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 16:30

“You can’t be a fascist of knowledge.” -Adam Narloch

MIN 17:30
Some people think deconstructing is negative and a dead end. Why deconstructing is not a dead end but rather life-giving.

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]The desire beyond desire. It calls us to the next thing. We mistake desire for the thing.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 18:30

(Adam)

Further up and further in…

the thing calling us forward. The beyond the beyond. The deconstructive process continues and we have to keep opening it up.

MIN 20:00

(John) Being comfortable of the Mystery of God.

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Who created God? you realize is the wrong question.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 23:30

(Lisa) My own deconstructing the image of Jesus, of God, and the mystery of understanding how our brains understand reality through constructions.

MIN 25:00

(Adam)

The alien orb. Sphere a Michael Crighton novel.

The Anthropomorphic problem – people make things people-like.

Jewish people are iconoclastic. No graven images. Images don’t capture the meaning.

Jesus is iconoclastic because he comes as divine coming in human form.

The temple curtain is torn revealing that nothing was there behind it because there was more to be revealed.

MIN 29:00

(John)

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Pluralism helps us deconstructs and helps take us to deeper truth.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 32:00

(Lisa)
Wrestling with God is our “calling” (as humans). In other words, it’s our most basic human experience.

Hear Robcast with Rabbi Joel.

MIN 33 (Adam)

[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Enlightenment has co-opted inside religion to take the wrestling [with God] out.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

MIN 33:30

(John)

on their podcast being referred to as “dangerous”

Heresy in the Middle Ages related to power and government structures (not spirituality).

The influence of the famous women mystics threatened power structures more than personal spiritual devotion in the lives of people.


MIN 36:00

• Revisionist History podcast Malcom Galdwell.

Do a revisionist history on the church heretics.

Check out Pelagius and see if maybe he wasn’t a heretic.

MIN 39:00

on Paul’s letters (which became part of collection of books now know as The Holy Bible) were the documents that were preserved the best (and most shaped what is now Christianity)

MIN 43:00

Paul’s authority.

The scandal of turning Paul’s letters into a new law would have deeply grieved Paul.

The Fidelity of Betrayal – Peter Rollins

• Peter Rollins’ books

Hear Episode 18 of the Deconstructionist Podcast featuring Jack Caputo here.


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Eps 67: Science Mike McHargue – Spiritual Skeptic

I’m so happy to have on one of my very favorite podcasters, Mike McHargue. Mike is a joy to speak to and brings grace and insights to his show and I know you’ll enjoy our conversation.

The show notes today are stuffed full of links to everything we mention in the episode. Check it out below! Support what I’m doing, if you can, by listening to other episodes, sharing this show, or chipping in as a supporter with a dollar or more. (scroll to the bottom for all of that too.) 

sciencemike

To share any part of this audio, click on the red and white icon below.

SHOWNOTES:

Science Mike McHargue:

new book: Finding God in the Waves

Intro 1:00

Finding God in the Waves

coming September 13 (2016)

Starting with the Liturgists podcast

on art, faith, and science

Ask Science Mike off shoot

5:30

Questions are okay.

7:30

Being aware of ignorance – not to be mistaken for humility.

8:00

“Understanding the mechanism behind a miracle doesn’t make it any less miraculous.”

Art is like this too.

Richard Feynman

Carl Sagan

these scientists appreciated the arts and mystery.

12:00

Seeing the Divine.

And understanding and appreciation he Trinity. Father, Son, Spirit

Celtics and Eastern Orthodox. Philokalia

Catholic Mystics

18:30

Who he’s reading. Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating.

Christianity is Eastern religion.

21:00

The great Schism 1,000 AD

dogma and chrisma

Karen Armstrong – The History of God.


Making meaning of the world and avoiding magical thinking.

25:00

Superstition is anti – science

Processing reality using language is what humans do.

T.M. Lurhmann with Stanford. “When God Talks Back” religious communities.

psych absorption test. thinking God is responsive in prayer.

The more you pray the more likely you will have these experiences.

Genetically primed to “hear” from God and environmental factors and disciplines. It helps us be better in the world.

Tanya Lurhman on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross March 26, 2012-

30:00

Anthropologist and charismatic experience is easily replicable. Is the brain an antenna?

Deeply materialist views of the world disturb people.

32:30

Does Mike have haters?

At LIVE events there is a lot of love even among people who might be thought to be polarized.

35:30

About his Book Tour

Ask Science Mike Events

18-20 places.

FindingGodintheWaves.com

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