Enjoy this LIVE STREAM replay I did on Periscope.
The first one I did was awful so I had to delete it. I’m still learning this streaming stuff and the camera works was an “F-“. My how screwing up keeps me humble! I have so many chances each day.
Enjoy this resource. It’s a great way to start Autumn with greater awareness, gratitude, and transformation!
This spacious episode features some great (creative commons) music and concerns the aerating of wine and (more importantly) of your creative soul.
(Yes, I have asthma and you can tell! Please forgive all my gasping for breath. It’s been a hard few weeks for me.)
Click to listen now:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:50 — 24.5MB) | Embed
Subscribe to Spark My Muse Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Email | TuneIn | RSS | Subscribe to Spark My Muse
Life As Prayer: Revived Spirituality Inspired by Ancient Piety
(on the life and legacy of Brother Lawrence’s habit of “practicing the presence of God”)
How can YOU find an enduring sense of God’s presence with you? Learn about 16th century Brother Lawrence and how his understanding of God’s presence continues to enrich lives today.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast AND to my newsletter!
Both your wine and your life must be able to to breathe!
Full and aware breathing can inspire your creative muse and enrich your life in so many ways.
minute 1:00
I excitedly announce two upcoming interviews:
• Daniel J. Lewis interview (a virtuosic creator who’s received national awards for podcasts he produces).
• Sarah Bessey (Jesus Feminist author) Interview (discussing her new Out of Sorts book).
WINE SEGMENT: Letting wine breathe!
minute: 5:00
In wine terms “aeration” is the process of bringing air into wine.
The term dumb (i.e. “dumb wine”) refers to a wine that has little flavor or fragrance.
• Swirling wine mixes it with air and allows it to both breathe and speak!
• Flavor and aroma and the beauty and richness of the wine emerges as space for air gets in (just like us).
TIPS to make a better speaking wine:
(If buying excellent wine isn’t an option….which is most of us!)
Option 1.
Use a blender.
Option 2.
Use a hand blender (this is a method I use)
Option 3.
A cheap and simple solution:
Pour wine into a bowl and whisk it with a fork or whisk (like you would for scrambled eggs).
minute 5:50
Sparking your muse
• Aeration of the soul
• (a short recording) Insights from the middle of my retreat time at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Wernersville, PA.
Forgetting how to breath.
My asthma and stress; and tightness of breath and soul.
8:30
Sprit of God = breath of life
9:30
On slowing down.
9:50
The fantastic 4-7-8 second breathing exercise I learned to get your breath (and life) back.
11:30
Retreat invitation
(click link to learn more)
12:20
Giving breath to the creative soul…
Creating space and breath for the Creative muse/your soul to truly thrive
13:00
The Scriptural inspiration, history, and meaning of “Breath Prayer”
(as a Christian devotional practice)
Luke 18:9-14
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
minute 15:00
Breath Prayer: A simple cry for help and connection
• How to do “breath prayer”
• My important adaptation to breath prayer (that helps me identify as a loved child of God).
Did you enjoy the podcast?
I hope you’ll share this episode with friend or family member who might need more space and air for her soul to breathe.
Cheers! Here’s to your health.
I’d like to hear from you.
Please, help me and take this short 30-second listener-survey.
Thanks for joining me in this series that summarizes Dr Ben Witherington’s lectures on the Imago Dei (at the Welsey Forum 2014, Evangelical Seminary).
The following are snippets of the talk; the things that made the biggest impact on me.
(Scroll to the bottom to read a bio of Witherington and access his books.)
“By loving God you become like God. You become what you admire.”
The Kingdom of God is here now.
my note: (God broke into history and time with Jesus and his mission-and has always done that, to which the Bible attests.)
The Kingdom is also to come.
Kingdom means dominion (a realm). Dominion is a noun. Dominion is our inheritance.
“We live in a foreshadow, not a foretaste of the kingdom.”
my note: (The kingdom will come fully in the “fullness of time” and all will be put to rights-evil vanquished.)
Yom means day in Hebrew.
Yahweh can be translated as “Ancient of Days”
“Jesus is the only human + superhuman.”
Jesus:
• he is fully unique
• he meets the requirement (for sacrifice)
• he is the only God-man
• he is the only one worthy to be a mediator
Jesus imposed self-limitation
(Satan tempted him to abandon that.)
Jesus’ limitations on the “OMNIs”:
• Time
• Space
• Knowledge
(He did have immediate access to God through his intimate relationship with God and that is why he could know secret or hidden things and how he could prophesy.)
• Mortality
• Power
Phil. 2:6-8
Though in the form of God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
The big difference? He sinned not.
How Jesus dealt with problems:
1. Using the scriptures
2. With the spirit of God
Thus:
• We have the same resources
• We can imitate Jesus
BIO:
Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies.
Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.
Witherington has written over forty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website.
Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.
Click to View the Books by Dr Ben Witherington
This is continued from this 1-5 article.
It’s REALLY helpful to read that part first for context, I assure you!
Now on to the next half:
6. Non believers live in fear and doubt.
It’s interesting that many from inside the Christian bubble will ascribe these attributes to non believers when a simple gaze across the church goers on any Sunday morning will show the very same thing to be true of Christians too. I don’t know anyone who does not live in fear and doubt at least from time-to-time. What some Christians won’t tell you is that the local pharmacists know a lot about their fear and doubt even if those in their small group aren’t privy to the matter. And some people just drink, shop, or puke their fattening meal to cope. What is more true? To be human is to fear and doubt. We may call it worry or concern, or a prayer request, but it’s there for Christians and non believers alike.
7. Non believers are afraid of death.
Some are not. Some Christians are not. Not everyone braves their impending physical demise well. This is not so strange, because imagining not needing or using your body anymore is really odd. Really really odd.
Even a Christian who will tell you they know for absolute sure that they will be in heaven with Jesus at the moment of death, as you probe them further and they get into specifics their ideas about all that there is a shift. Either they will often become full of fantasy (sourced in the poetic and figurative descriptions of the afterlife from the Bible which they have illogically decided to take literally [sic.] Pearly gates, streets of gold, or Jesus riding a gigantic purple horse) or that may dissolve into what becomes rather unsettling admission of mystery. Can you really know the particulars? Of course not.
It’s thoughtful to be challenged by the unknown–which is what death is. It’s important to come to your end of surety. It keeps us humble and growing. For everyone, that portion of life and death is a matter of faith, no matter what we believe will happen once our heart stops and we will soon be lowered underground. It is creepy because we are used to being alive, breathing and such. We hate it when others we love die, and leave us, and the whole thing is strange, if we are going to be honest. But, are we?
8. When they behave properly, non believers unconsciously borrow ethics from Christians.
Oaky, on this one, perhaps I’ll say “Yes and No”. In the U.S. the influence of Christianity in our common society is thick and unavoidable. Yet, unbeknownst to Christians, behaviors we (Christians) consider good Christian values and ethics are also part of a meta ethic known the world over and through the whole span of human history. (Following through and getting it right is a whole different business, of course.) This meta-ethic, which many secular anthropologists downplay, or quickly chalk up to darwinian processes, (ad hoc mind you) actually seem to point toward the transcendent. The philosophers get into this quite a bit. So, the part of us that is involved with consciousness is ever-present and point to a place off our seen “map” if you will. Call it the “Devine Spark”, “God”, Yahweh, the Universe (if something impersonal could somehow also be personal, by whatever), the “higher self” (a la Alcoholics Anonymous), or what-have-you…we are essentially speaking of the same big thing… that incidentally is no thing. The Other, the great I AM, the life force, and really when we split hair on that big point, we miss the forrest for the trees.
9. Non believers discredit the unseen world.
This is hardly ever true. Yes, there are a few full blown materialists, but like the unicorn, they are rarely seen and then, only for a few fleeting moments in the perfect circumstances like when painted on velvet or when Harry Potter is nearby.
The desire to discover the mysteries of life are ever-present. Media is a great barometer for this. For instance, witness the many horror genre movies (ghosts, zombies, paranormal stuff, aliens, etc) and all the tv shows groping for answers from the spooky and paranormal night-vision scenes from the many television shows on cable, to the mediums, psychics, and spiritual celebrity gurus and even mega-church personalities (Yes. I’m including everyone from Joel Osteen, (Joyce) Myers, Oprah, Deepak Chopra, and Rick Warren, to Billy Graham, and the Dali Lama). Our gurus and guides are plentiful and that’s because the demand for them is so high. Plus, the prophecy folks of all stripes continue their empires as the masses feeling around in the murkiness for answers.
10. Non believers are going to hell one day.
Okay, this is the one that may get me the hate mail. Just hang on! The reason that this is a misconception is because we can’t know how Grace will or won’t affect a person once they die. We trust in Grace. In the idea of it existing; in the Being that doles it. Can we know another person’s heart that well? I doubt it when our own heart is so unfathomable and fickle for us. Grace is big. As big as you think it is, you are wrong. It’s bigger. I’m always wrong about grace because I cannot fathom it for too long.
Thank you for joining me. If this article made you think, please share it with someone.
Sign up for the next article? I can’t tell you what it’ll be but I think you’ll like it.
