SUNDAY LECTURE | From There To Here, From Here to Eternity

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for January 12, 2025

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Dear Ones -

Dr. Holly Hudley and I co-taught this week and the title we gave our teaching was -

From There to Here
From Here to Eternity

The teaching is about how Jesus got from his birth to his vocation and how our own personal history shapes who we are and how we walk the “wayless way.” The two main areas Jesus taught about were forgiveness and God as compassionate and loving. We show how these grew out of his early life experience and how this information might be useful to us as “wounded healers.” I encourage you to watch or listen to the time as we deviated from our text a fair amount.

You can find the text of the talk, the presentation slides and links to the audio and video version of the talk using the links below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

In order to read or download the text of the talk, click here.

To view or download the presention slides, click here.

To view or download the announcement slides, click here..

In order to either download or just listen to the audio recording of today’s talk, you can click on the audio player link below.

In order to watch the video recording of today’s talk, you can click on the YouTube video link below.

SUNDAY LECTURE | The Simple Truth Is Not So Simple

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for January 5, 2025

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Dear Ones -

I called the teaching I offered this week in Ordinary Life -

The Simple Truth Isn’t So Simple

After a brief introduction reminding us what the “mission and vision” of Ordinary Life is, we begin our journey through the Jesus narratives; a journey I’m calling “Walking the Wayless Way.”

First we have to deal with the fact that there are no sources that give us the “unvarnished truth” about Jesus because the “varnish of faith in Jesus” covers everything. Further, the contexts, both then and now, complicate our understandings and our views.

The gospel narratives, like Jesus himself, are very “political.” “Tell me how you think and act politically and I will tell you in which God you believe.” (That’s a line from a very important book of theology by Dorothee Solelle.)

How do we, in our current cultural context, learn to “think critically and live faithfully”? We are called to be Christmas Christians in a world that still descends into darkness. But, the darkness does not have the final word - unless we let it. Choosing to walk “the wayless way” is choosing to walk a way that is contrary to our culture but it is a way to spiritual freedom, light, and life

That’s a brief summary. Information about how to find the full text and video are below.

I have been informed that the audio/video is missing the first ten minutes or so.

The audio/video versions of the talk has some differences from the text I spoke from. You can find the text of the talk, the presentation slides and links to the audio and video version of the talk using the links below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

In order to read or download the text of the talk, click here.

In order to view or download the presentation slides, click here.

In order to view or download the announcement slides, click here.

In order to download or listen to the audio recording of today’s talk, please use the audio player below. Note: Due to technical issues at the beginning of today’s class, the first ten minutes or so of the talk did not make it onto the recording. Our apologies for the glitch.

In order to watch the video recording of today’s talk, please click on the YouTube link below.

SUNDAY LECTURE | In the Bleak Midwinter

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for De member 22, 2024

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Dear Ones -

Hard to believe that this week was our last time to meet this year. The year has flown by.

Some of the finest “religious theater” is held during the Advent/Christmas season at St. Paul’s. The music has been just astoundingly wonderful. I marvel at the skill of our organ scholar, Emily Amos. Of course, the St. Paul’s choir is outstanding. So, I encourage you, if you are in the Houston area to take advantage of one of the Christmas Eve services at St. Paul’s this year. They will be at noon, four, six, and eight o’clock. These services, especially the four and six o’clock, are usually very well attended; so, come early. If the church parking lots are full, use the Fine Arts garage. It will be free for this.

As for this week in Ordinary Life, I completed the teaching I had begun last week about unlearning and unknowing. There are three major roadblocks on walking the way we are undertaking. They are: having a daily spiritual practice, unlearning, and unknowing. We grow up being taught “what to see.” Wise and useful spirituality seeks to teach us “how to see.” It is in having a practice, unlearning, and unknowing that we experience the “hope-certainty” that loving-kindness is our truth and our destiny. In the teaching I also highly recommend the movie Conclave and use a couple of examples from it to illustrate the teaching.

That’s a brief summary of this teaching for this week in Ordinary Life.

The audio/video versions of the talk has some differences from the text I spoke from. You can find the text of the talk, the presentation slides and links to the audio and video version of the talk using the links below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

To read or download the text of the talk, click here.

To view or download the presentation slides, click here.

To view or download the announcement slides, click here.

In order to listen to or to download the audio recording of today’s talk, please use the audio player below.

In order to watch the video of today’s talk, use the YouTube player below.

SUNDAY LECTURE | Unlearning and Unknowing

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for De member 15, 2024

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Dear Ones -

First, the Ordinary Life Christmas party is this Friday night. See the Ordinary Life website for details. click here.

Second, Jan Phillips who was with us in January 2023, has a new book out. It would make a wonderful Christmas gift for yourself or someone else. Though it won’t be available until mid-January, you can order it now on Amazon. I’ve been privileged to see the first hundred pages and it is a treasure trove of quotes, musings, and amazing photographs. It is titled “Stop Seeking, Start Finding: A Book of Hours for Spiritual Evolutionaries.” I’ve ordered my copy. click here.

As for this week’s teaching, I called it

Unlearning and Unknowing

There are two ways to deal with any position one takes, including a religious one: the way of explanation or the way of exploration. I am teaching the way of exploration. There is no one true faith or path into the heart of Sacred Mystery. There is only the way of compassion and justice. We will likely have to unlearn things in order to get to the truth that the things we learned were trying to teach when they were first formulated. The teaching ends with a comparison of the birth narratives in Matthew and Like.

That’s a brief summary.

The audio/video versions of the talk has some differences from the text I spoke from. You can find the text of the talk, the presentation slides and links to the audio and video version of the talk using the links below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

In order to read or download the text version of the talk, click here.

In order to view or download the presentation slides, click here.

In order to view or download the announcement slides, click here.

In order to listen to or download the audio recording of today’s talk, please use the audio player below.

In order to watch the video recording of today’s talk, please use the YouTube player link below.