Fairly often people ask me what I have been reading lately.  Here is my list and I recommend every one of these!

Philip Gulley – The Evolution of Faith and If the Church Were Christian

Robin R. Meyers – Saving Jesus from the Church

Richard Rohr – Falling Upward and Breathing Under Water

Rob Bell – Love Wins

M. Scott Peck – The Different Drum

Jacquelyn Small – The Sacred Purpose of Being Human

Frances Gench – Faithful Disagreement

And without a doubt – very much a surprise – a book that I purchased not aware that is was fiction – but it proved to be powerful!

Harry Kraus – Serenity

I would love to know what you have been reading lately – please join in the conversation.

During the last couple of weeks in preparation for my sermon delivered yesterday, February 26, 2012 I encountered some very interesting material on the internet.  A goodly portion of it provided some laughter and entertainment, but not much of it was of any use other than to know that it would not be utilized as part of my sermon.  The Scripture text for the sermon was Mark 13:32-37 and the title of the sermon was “Staying Awake.”  I am endebted to The Reverend Dr. Peter G. James at the Vienna Presbyterian Church for the following sermon illustration which I used toward the end of the sermon.

On May 19, 1780, the sky over Hartford darkened ominously, so much so that some members of the Connecticut House of Representatives feared the end was at hand. Colonel Abraham Davenport, who served as the House Speaker, rose from his seat to say, “The day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought.” Candles were brought until the sunlight returned later in the day.

I wonder – when the day of Judgment comes will we be found doing those things that God has called us to do?

In preparation for sermons on the First Sunday of Lent I have been re-reading one of my favorite books – The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle.

A section that once again grabbed my attention follows:

Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.  But they are not what I would call emotions.  They lie beyond the emotions, on a much deeper lever.  So you need to become fully conscious of your emotions and be able to feel them before you can feel what lies beyond them.  Emotion literally means “disturbance.”  The word comes from the Latin emovere, meaning “to disturb.”

Love, joy, and peace are deep states of Being, or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being.  As such, they have no opposite.  This is because they arise from beyond the mind.  Emotions, on the other hand, being part of the dualistic mind, are subject to the law of opposites.  This simply means that you cannot have good without bad.  So in the unenlightened, mind-identified condition, what is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure side of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle.  Pleasure is alwyas derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.

Pages 29-30 — http://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330191411&sr=8-1

Toward the end of August 2011 I posted that I would be taking a bit of a break and that posts would resume on September 6 . . . so at this point I guess the best thing for me to observe is “better late than never.”

The intervening time has been filled with several unpredicted twists and turns in my journey of life.  Some of the future posts will deal with a few of these adventures, and while you may not need to read about some, or any,  of them – I know that I still need to do some talking – or writing – about several of them – so – I hope that you will indulge my need and join in the conversation because a conversation – a dialogue – is far more rewarding than an ongoing monologue or soliloquy.

Today is the second day in the season of Lent – traditionally a time when many people make a commitment to give something up during this period of 40 days plus Sundays.  I feel a need to make a commitment to just the opposite of that – rather than giving something up – likely something that would not really be missed anyway – I think I need to take on some things that I know make me a person that is more whole and healthy than when I do not do these things.  One of those is the resumption of writing this blog.

So now is a time for a new beginning . . . or more appropriately a time to resume the journey . . . so I leave you this first day back when some words that have meant a great deal to me over a significant number of years.  They are the opening text of an choral anthem by Allen Pote – the words are credited to Nancy Hollis Dillard and Allen Pote (copyright 1980 by Hinshaw Music, Inc.) and I believe that they offer the opportunity to resume this journey with a right spirit:

“Awake, arise, the journey’s begun.  We travel on together as one.  We know not where the road will lead, but we move in faith making love our creed as we follow: the journey is our home.”