An Appeal for Realism and Faith

Dear Folks -

We are beginning a bit of an experiment in both Ordinary Life and on the Ordinary Life website. Often when I give a talk I use overheads to make a point. Sometimes these are words and sometimes they are cartoons or photographs. I have started using a "powerpoint" type of presentation to do this and we are going to put pdf files of the talks on the website. As I said, this is an experiment both in the class and on the website. After a few weeks we'll evaluate the effectiveness of this. It is difficult to tell where these e-mails go or who views the website. I know for a fact that we have people who read Ordinary Life in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, New Zealand as well as the United States. I hope this change enhances the experience of the Ordinary Life talks for those who can't attend in person.

This week I began dealing with the parable of Jesus in an effort to see how we can experience the transformation some of those who first him did. This week I dealt with the parable of the mustard seed. It was, I believe, a story Jesus told to appeal to what I call religious realism and an appeal to creative imagination.

The full text I used for the talk is below as is the audio.

Much love,

Bill Kerley

Click here to Download text 20091018.pdf

Click here to Download Keynote presentation slides Religious_Realism.pdf

Click here to Download audio 20091018.mp3