ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life
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Summary for January 24, 2020
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Dear Folks -
I want to make you aware of an ongoing study/learning opportunity that occurs on Wednesday evenings. It is a study of the Book of Ecclesiastes. I am serving as a faculty member, along with three other staff members - Karyn Richards-Kuan, Paul Richards-Kuan and Kate Flint. I believe that this time we are in is an excellent time to learn about and reflect on the teachings in this book from the Wisdom Literature tradition. It can help us live a more examined life. If you want to register for this, click here. Also, this would be a good time in your Daily Spiritual Practice to re-read the book, “Living An Examined Life” by James Hollis. I re-read it every year, reading a brief chapter every day. I recommend this to you as well.
The two most common “religious paths” people follow in the United States are what I call the path of “unstable correctness” or the path of “stable illusion.” The time in Ordinary Life this week was an exploration into another way, one referred to by Carl Jung as a “living religion.” In the absence of people seeking to construct and live a “wise and useful” religious path, things like “Christian Nationalism” rise to fill the vacuum. Carl Jung said that we fall victim to the herd mentality if we cannot read the individual divinity in ourselves. A living religion equips people to do this work. I also talk briefly about how and why it is that people believe weird things like conspiracy theories.
That is a very brief summary of our time in Ordinary Life this week.
We called the talk -
Living a New Story
You can find the text we had in front of us, the presentation slides and the audio version of the talk using the links below.
Also, be aware that we have instituted a weekly podcast. It is called “In Between.” You can access this through the Ordinary Life website.
If you would like to know how to make a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here for video instructions.
If you are reading this, I want you to know how grateful I am for and to you.
Be well and much love,
Bill Kerley
In order to read or download the text used, click here.
In order to view or download the presentation slides, click here.
To listen to an audio recording of this talk, use the player below.
To watch a video of today’s talk, please use the YouTube link below.