A Conversation with Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber

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

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Summary of Ordinary Life for March 23, 2025

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Dear Ones -

Home run!

That’s the way I would describe my experience with Nadia Bolz-Weber this past weekend. Many people have expressed the same kind of response to me. The Saturday event was sold out. She spoke with us about anthropology and neuroscience in the most personal and practical ways, sharing with us her twelve-week experience walking The Camino and making a multitude of suggestions about how to live and connect with nature and each other during this time in our culture. The fact that she ended with us enthusiastically singing was a highlight of the evening for me - and the chance I had to have an extended interview with her.

You can access the time she spent with us in Ordinary Life using the link below. Her sermon can be found on the St. Paul’s website.

Her sermon was so different from what she offered on Saturday. In Ordinary Life we just had fun. I encourage you, if you missed what she did on Sunday to go to the websites and watch or listen. She is a prophet who speaks pastorally and a pastor who speaks prophetically.

I am go glad, grateful, and graced not only by her being here but also by all of the people whose contributions to the Kerley Endowment made this, and other offerings like it, possible. Thank you!

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 view or download the presentation slides, click here.

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

To listen to the audio recording of Dr. Kerley’s conversation with Nadia Bolz-Weber, use the audio player below.

To watch the video of today’s program, use the YouTube link below.

Being Enlightened About Being Enlightened

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

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Summary of Ordinary Life for March 16, 2025

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Dear Ones -

The long-anticipated time with Nadia Bolz-Weber is this weekend. For details see the Ordinary Life website. We will have a full room on Saturday so come early.

Just to alert those of you who plan to attend the Saturday event in person: if you want a book signed - Blue Willow Bookstore will have some of her books there - please come early. Nadia has requested that though she loves to visit with people, she doesn’t have energy for that after events. She will also be preaching both services at St. Paul’s on Sunday and she and I will have a dialogue during the Ordinary Life time that day.

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

Being Enlightened About Enlightenment

I can fall into the belief that if everyone saw things like I do, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today. Of course, others who differ from me believe the same thing. So, why don’t we all see alike? Answer: Our biases. Seeing clearly is important because our world is drifting more and more into authoritarianism. Jesus did his teachings in the midst of an authoritarian world. Jesus’ teachings are not about our being better people but, rather, they are to help us see something so new, so against what we have always heard, that we cannot rely on our older images of what is and what is not.

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

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

Okay. Not Okay.

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

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Summary of Ordinary Life for March 9, 2025

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Dear Ones -

If you have not registered for the time Natia Bolz-Weber will be with us, I encourage you to do so. All people who register for the event will receive a link prior to the event that will allow for live-streaming. So that even if you live in Houston or near by and can’t attend the event in person, you will be able to participate that way. To learn more about and register for this event, click here.

This Saturday evening there is an Ordinary Life Happy hour. The time is 6:30 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the home of Stan and Shirley Beyer; 502 Park Trail Lane. More details will be in the preview you’ll receive Friday morning.

This week in Ordinary Life I used a line from a poem to set the stage for the teaching. The line is “our world is rife with desperation and ripe with joy.” You’ll find the entire poem in the text.

Following one of the narratives of Jesus we learn that the wayless way seeks to push us further out and deeper within at the same time. We must also be mindful that the audience to whom Jesus taught and who embraced him and his teachings were people he referred to as “the least of these.” Jesus became for them a guiding force, a companion, a protector, and a sustainer. For us this means, among other things, that the test of true faith is how much it lets us see and how much it stops us from denying, resisting, ignoring aspects of what is really going on in our world(s) and what is real.

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 view 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.

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

To watch the video recording of today’s talk, click on the YouTube link below.