Today on Soul School I am sharing a version of a presentation on prayer that I gave to the inmates at Federal Prison FCI Schuylkill who (voluntarily) attend ongoing LIFE Ministry(Christian)classes.
My book on prayer is called LIFE AS PRAYER:
My book was inspired by Brother Lawrence and this book:
The Letters of Brother Lawrence
BIO:
Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered the greatest secret of living in the kingdom of God while serving as a brother in a monastery near Paris. For Lawrence his life was involved the art of “practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end.” Lawerence often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our soul. We must only open our hearts to receive God and God’s loving presence. For nearly 300 years this unparalleled classic (which is mainly a collection of letters from him and remembrances of him) has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God presence in all God’s majesty and feeling God’s loving presence throughout each simple day.
DETAILS:
• Each FRIDAY, guests join me in a conversation.
• Come back each Wednesday
(on “Hump Day” aka Midweek) for a brief Soul School “lesson”–something for your interior world and common life.
WILL YOU HELP ME? Spark My Muse is LISTENER supported.
Background… interests and the journey to create a podcast.
EXPLAIN Catacombic Theologian /
A desiring theology of becoming.
MIN 3:00 Education and a distaste for academia and models and formulas created there.
4:30
Explaining the name “freestyle Christianity”
experimental and a space that is open and with no doorkeepers.
And giving up the name
7:30 Religious background in childhood and how that’s changed
YWAM (Youth With a Mission)
10:00 Reading apologetic and learning about the boogie men of Evangelicals
Philosophy and Theologian as neighbors and a matter paychecks
12:30
Catacombic Theology explained in brief
asking to explain in old categories
Henri Berson
Taught to answer specific questions to guide our search for truth…. we should be shaping the questions.
We confuse the less with the more.
15:30
Why is there always something NEW?
17:30
• [Society] becomes oppressive because eventually the powerful decide the categories.
Sacrifice and squeezing in other groups into a form that wasn’t ever might for them and oppressive.
19:00 Cathedrals – catacombs in the basement. It may not reflect truth. It reflects what is being preached.
Re-present what we think is the truth. Not trying to re-present something.
Our theology (our cathedrals represent the people who built it.). We build boards (whether we see them or not and they function in an exclusive fashion.
The proclamation the church made that the spirit doesn’t move outside the Father or Son and the Son is found in the Church. (inside)
In theology, difference is looked at as if is presupposes opposition.
But it’s the other way around, opposition presupposes difference.
Novelty
26:00
EXAMPLE: the Internet and new categories .
The Pope follows no one back on Twitter, because an old institution is misunderstanding a new category of communication.
27:30
How do the people of the Church gather in a way that works?
PETE ROLLINS episode & pints and parable
HERE THE EPISODE WITH PETE ROLLINS:
Twitter democratizes people and strips off labels of an old (pre digital) world.
New hierarchies are being created online where added a meaningful contribution makes you an important member.
Humans continue to have the same desire to connect (in-person) and gather.
DETAILS:
• Each FRIDAY, guests join me in a conversation.
• Come back each Wednesday
(on “Hump Day” aka Midweek) for a brief Soul School “lesson”–something for your interior world and common life.
Today, my guest is a follow podcaster and blogger Ryan J. Bell. Ryan came into some notoriety when he, as a Seventh Day Adventist Pastor, decided to blog about living a year without God and he gained a large following as a columnist on Huffington Press as well. What happened next and what he’s up to now makes for an interesting story. Listen in.
prophetic interpretation and end times predictions
lost truths that mainstream Christianity left behind.
MIN 6:00
He started reading theology that differed from the framework he came from. It was less restrictive and exclusive toward others.
9:00
Atheism and the blog “A Year Without God” started in January 2013
9 month break,
Spiritual but not religious, American, individualism version of spiritual experience: “Everybody is having their own private isolated experience of wonder.”
Religion for Atheists – Alain de Botton
He submitted his idea of “middle space–between belief and non belief” for the Huffington Post Religion Page and it was very popular.
15:00
People approached him because they didn’t have anyone to talk to about their doubts and questions.
Space for dark spots of doubt.
19:00
Do you hang on to any spiritual practices or vestiges of your old life?
Coming to a centered place in the now and in focused and non judgmental way and noticing feelings.
22:00
What have you done with “The Big Other” and the baggage from your upbringing?
Do you have gratitude toward the Big Other, or how is it expressed?
Not locating a destination for his gratitude.
26:00
Morality of an atheist. Being good for goodness sake.
A bottom up thinker
27:00
Draw to Judaism because it had created a theology around a community not a community out of a theology.
Judaism: Built around love, work, sex, food–the whole life lived.
Norms and wrong & right
29:00
Why he started the Life After God podcast
The response to the question:
“How do we community, both online and in person, in both groups and one-on-one, ….to help people around their changing viewpoints.”
Dealing with the challenges and life issues after a life where people stop believing in God.
32:30
A community of revolt coheres poorly. -Lisa
Atheists that move into Humanism (a secular moral philosophy to guide life)
Today, my guest is author and friend from across the pond, Kester Brewin. Our conversation covers fascinating topics about human nature and the history of drug culture and the Jesus movement, the surprising backstory about colonial era Pirates and mutiny few of us have heard, along with some of Kester’s personal journey.
MAKE SURE to scroll down to see a playlist of other episodes I know you’ll like and a subscribe option. Thank you so much for listening in. A wonderful summer lineup of guests is coming. Like, next week’s guest: Mike McHargue (Ask Science Mike).
Kester Brewin
(If you hear some audio you’d like to share. Simply click the red and white Clammr icon below! SO COOL!)
HAVE you seen the NEW Spark Store?
