Let's all make spiritual talk simple today:
God is trying to sell you something. And you don't want to buy.
This is what your suffering is: your fantastic haggling,
your manic screaming over the price.
-Hafiz
food for thought; still don't know if i agree.
love,
aa
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Faith is the Courageous Trust in Life
"Having faith does not mean subscribing to some dogmas or to some articles of faith or anything like that. Faith ultimately is courage to trust in life. The particular form that our religious faith takes depends entirely on the time and place and the social structure and the cultural forms into which we were born, and there is an infinite variety of these. But the essence of our faith is the same at all times and in all places, and it is the courage to trust in life."
-Brother David Steindl-Rast, "The Monk in Us"
This was a really beautiful article that had some wonderful Universalist notions about what 'truth' means (in a religious context) versus fear, and the paradox of experience between indidual experiences of meaning, and connection to a universal oneness. If you want the full article, I'll email it to you.
MGW
-Brother David Steindl-Rast, "The Monk in Us"
This was a really beautiful article that had some wonderful Universalist notions about what 'truth' means (in a religious context) versus fear, and the paradox of experience between indidual experiences of meaning, and connection to a universal oneness. If you want the full article, I'll email it to you.
MGW
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Zohar and Jewish Mysticism
Today I sat in on a class I'm thinking about taking which is a text study class on the Zohar, the primary book on Kabalah and Jewish Mysticism. An hour of the class was spent doing Chavrutah (partner) text study on the two primary visions of the "Ma'aseh Merkavah" (sort of like a doctrine of chariot visions?)in the Hebrew bible. These visions come in the books of Ezekiel and Isaiah.
So, I'll fill you in on what the sages extrapolated from these passages if I take the class, but if your in the mood to read some really amazing, beautiful, trippy, terrifying, powerful, etc. descriptions of Angels and G-d, check out the 1st chapter of Ezekiel and Isaiah chapter 6. Would love to hear y'all's take!
Love as always
So, I'll fill you in on what the sages extrapolated from these passages if I take the class, but if your in the mood to read some really amazing, beautiful, trippy, terrifying, powerful, etc. descriptions of Angels and G-d, check out the 1st chapter of Ezekiel and Isaiah chapter 6. Would love to hear y'all's take!
Love as always
Skype Spirit
Just got to skype with Aaliya for 45 minutes and my soul is soaring. I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends in my life.
Monday, February 23, 2009
this is just the beginning...
"Just the Beginning" by Kurt Carr
This is one of the songs we are singing in Ebony this semester - it is incredibly inspirational for me this semester, especially with graduation (for real this time) looming in the not-so-distant distance.
song #9 on this website:
http://www.imeem.com/people/OVwbln9/playlist/D3tLHVKh/kurt_carr_music_playlist/
Enjoy, be inspired.
Love,
Emily
This is one of the songs we are singing in Ebony this semester - it is incredibly inspirational for me this semester, especially with graduation (for real this time) looming in the not-so-distant distance.
song #9 on this website:
http://www.imeem.com/people/OVwbln9/playlist/D3tLHVKh/kurt_carr_music_playlist/
Enjoy, be inspired.
Love,
Emily
Inspiration in all places
I heard this quote while watching the Oscars last night, of all things, but I liked the message:
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again!"
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again!"
-- Jerry Lewis
a sidenote: I am really enjoying this blog so far. Let's keep it up!
Lots of love to you all,
Emily
a sidenote: I am really enjoying this blog so far. Let's keep it up!
Lots of love to you all,
Emily
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Contemporary Spiritualities
So I started classes at Hebrew U today (finally!); some ok, and some absolutely amazing.
My favorite class by far is called "Contemporary Spirituality in Israel and the United States" in which we're going to "examine the varieties of Jewish Spirituality presently being developed and offered in America and Israel today." So, basically right up my alley. The professor, Eliezer Shore, is this amazing Bal Tshuva Tzadik, who spent the first 20 minutes of class telling us about his spiritual journey of dropping out of Sarah Lawrence, studying Buddhist in monasteries, meditating around England, living in isolation in the North Carolina woods for half a year, and finally turning to Jewish mysticism, taking everything he picked up along the way with him. This guy just radiates loving energy, is absolutely brilliant, and is going to be so much for, and so nurturing for the soul to study with. In the first class, he literally references every book that is sitting besides my bed that I was debating taking to Israel; Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber; I and Thou, Victor Frankl; Man in Search of Meaning; Ken Wilber; a Brief History of Everything, and of course the tanach.
So, yeah, this class is far from the Wesleyan religion department to say the least. We each had to say how we identified "spritually" with a combination of the labels, "spritual," "religious," and "secular/scientific" with the object being to define the terms; trying to define spirituality in the first class! That would probably be Peter Gotschalk's final essay question if he taught this class...
Anyways, I'll leave y'all with a quote we talked over for quite awhile. It is not particularly inspirational, and in fact, I think I quite disagree with it, but it is certainly thought provoking for the class, and those of us on the "transcendental" journey. I'll post a better quote from the class soon.
So much love from Jerusalem, and missing all of you already,
Micah
"We Start with the simple observation that the "metaphysics" of the spiritual traditions have been thoroughly critiqued - "trashed" is probably the better word - by both modernist and postmodernist epistemologies, and there has arisen nothing compelling to take their space"
-Ken Wilber; Integral Spirituality, p. 33
OK, changed my mind, here's a bit more uplifting quote:
"The crises of our time are challenging the world religions to release a new spiritual force transcending religious, cultural, and national boundaries into a new consciousness of the oneness of the human community and so putting into effect a spiritual dynamic towards a solution of the world's problems...We affirm a new spirituality, divested of insularity and directed towards planetary consciousness"
-Statement read before the U.N., October 1995 (don't know by who)
My favorite class by far is called "Contemporary Spirituality in Israel and the United States" in which we're going to "examine the varieties of Jewish Spirituality presently being developed and offered in America and Israel today." So, basically right up my alley. The professor, Eliezer Shore, is this amazing Bal Tshuva Tzadik, who spent the first 20 minutes of class telling us about his spiritual journey of dropping out of Sarah Lawrence, studying Buddhist in monasteries, meditating around England, living in isolation in the North Carolina woods for half a year, and finally turning to Jewish mysticism, taking everything he picked up along the way with him. This guy just radiates loving energy, is absolutely brilliant, and is going to be so much for, and so nurturing for the soul to study with. In the first class, he literally references every book that is sitting besides my bed that I was debating taking to Israel; Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber; I and Thou, Victor Frankl; Man in Search of Meaning; Ken Wilber; a Brief History of Everything, and of course the tanach.
So, yeah, this class is far from the Wesleyan religion department to say the least. We each had to say how we identified "spritually" with a combination of the labels, "spritual," "religious," and "secular/scientific" with the object being to define the terms; trying to define spirituality in the first class! That would probably be Peter Gotschalk's final essay question if he taught this class...
Anyways, I'll leave y'all with a quote we talked over for quite awhile. It is not particularly inspirational, and in fact, I think I quite disagree with it, but it is certainly thought provoking for the class, and those of us on the "transcendental" journey. I'll post a better quote from the class soon.
So much love from Jerusalem, and missing all of you already,
Micah
"We Start with the simple observation that the "metaphysics" of the spiritual traditions have been thoroughly critiqued - "trashed" is probably the better word - by both modernist and postmodernist epistemologies, and there has arisen nothing compelling to take their space"
-Ken Wilber; Integral Spirituality, p. 33
OK, changed my mind, here's a bit more uplifting quote:
"The crises of our time are challenging the world religions to release a new spiritual force transcending religious, cultural, and national boundaries into a new consciousness of the oneness of the human community and so putting into effect a spiritual dynamic towards a solution of the world's problems...We affirm a new spirituality, divested of insularity and directed towards planetary consciousness"
-Statement read before the U.N., October 1995 (don't know by who)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
I was looking back through quotes and passages I've saved - Aaliya, this is one that you sent me that feels important right now.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God.
Romans 8: 38-40
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God.
Romans 8: 38-40
something big
"When you go down to the river to drink," he said, "sometimes, quite often, the sun appears. Even though that wasn't what we were after. Now and again, when you go looking for something small, you come up with something big."- Peter Hoeg, The Woman & The Ape
- Aa
- Aa
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