Transmission: Radical Spirituality in Uncertain Times

24/10/2024

Headed to Cincinnati for the weekend!

While I'm excited for all the events, I'm particularly excited for the lecture on Friday evening where I'll be sharing, as far as I can tell, a new and unique take on the issue of Discernment.

Remember, you can watch live and also watch online at a later date!

22/10/2024

Watching collective psychosis unfold really isn't all that fun.

07/10/2024

I'm excited to be heading to Cincinnati in a couple of weeks for a weekend worth of talks and retreat time. The material will be a combination of the new book, Looking Inward, Living Outward, as well as some new things I'm working on: a modern look at discernment. If you are nearby, please consider joining us. Some of the services on Sunday will stream live. More info at: hydeparkchurch.org.

07/10/2024

The constant lying coming out of the GOP in regards to the hurricane cleanup once again shows that there is no moral bottom when it comes to authoritarianism, fascism, and the greed for power.

07/10/2024

If nothing else, the past decade should prove to people, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that ‘intelligence’ is not a relevant trait, or measure, of whether or not people will do what is right or good or work for justice and peace.

Intelligence, which I define as the ability to understand and work with ones environment to a high level of ability, can be easily manipulated and distracted by many things: strong emotion, power, confusion - the ego process in general.

The Wisdom tradition contrast the wise person and the fool. When we hear the term fool, we often think of unintelligent, but that is not the case. The fools in the passages in Proverbs often appear to be quite intelligent, with their schemes for wealth and power.

Foolishness is to be lost in our confusion, to be a slave to ego and evil.

By contrast, Wisdom must be practiced and cultivated. We must practice NOT being foolish.

The fact that the US is now being pummeled by monster storms, monster heat waves, fires and dust, and yet this is barely moving the needle on national policy related to climate change, is just the latest in a series of events that proves that smart people can be damn foolish.

02/10/2024

In the reports coming out of NC after the hurricane, I once again notice the theme of people helping each other in the face of disaster. I doubt that, before they drag someone out of a river or a mud slide, they are asking for their political party affiliation, what is their stance on some culture war issue, or even their immigration status.

The magnitude of disaster blows away the clouds of habitual pattern and ego which obscure our humanity; and in the face of the power of nature, which is a material manifestation of the power of God, people are humbled enough to recognize our frailty and the importance of care. The basic power of love is revealed in this moment of clarity and we behave differently.

Then everything clouds back over and we go back to ‘normal.’

Perhaps one way to describe the spiritual life is living in that constant state of disaster response.

16/09/2024

I'm very excited to be joining the community of First UMC Seattle as their guest preacher and teacher this Sunday, Sept 22, reflecting upon my new book, Looking Inward, Living Outward. The service will stream live at 10 a.m PST. Class is at 9 a.m. Come join us!

Join us on September 22 for a morning with Dan Wolpert, spiritual director/retreat facilitator, co-founder and former Executive Director of the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing, and regular presenter at the UMC’s 5-Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. Dan will lead our 9:00 AM Adul...

14/09/2024

A country that throws away one third of the food it produces and then has a major political party which attacks, rather than feeds, hungry people, in no way is even close to a society that could claim to follow Jesus.

10/09/2024

I have no problem with people pitching their particular candidate for any office.

However I do have an issue with people continuing to perpetuate myths and ideas whose only function is to prop up our two party political system.

So every election we hear the mantra, “A third party candidate can never win.”

This is factually incorrect.

Here is a map of the 2016 election results where “Did not vote” was one of the candidates and won by a landslide.

There are plenty of votes out there for another party. We are just addicted to the current system which has a strangle hold on our electoral imagination. Like any habitual pattern, rigid conceptual world views prevents us from considering another world and doing the organizing needed for liberation.

06/09/2024

School shootings are ‘a fact of life.’ - JD Vance

Here it is folks. This is an admission of the American Way of the Gun.

I first began working on the issue of gun control when I was in high school. That was over 50 years ago.

Very quickly I came to the conclusion that nothing significant would ever be done on this issue because America is not just addicted to its guns but guns are an integral part of what it means to be American.

I once again present my latest mantra:

If we cannot even agree that killing children is a bad thing, and we need to not do that, I’m not sure where we even begin to have a conversation about a good society.

09/08/2024

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism'
-Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek.

The spiritual life is an economic system, not simply a set of ‘spiritual teachings.’
For it calls us into a new relationship with materiality.