Dear Folks - 

We had some technical difficulties at Ordinary Life this week. The audio visual person who operates the booth at the museum where we have been meeting failed to show up so we had no good lighting, sound or ability to show the slide presentation that went with my talk. I think we can put the slides up on the Ordinary Life website. 

I began my talk this week talking about my experience with magic as a hobby. Magic tricks fall into one of two categories - either being disappointing (as in, "So that's how that works.") or difficult (as in, "I'm going to have to practice this for hours to be able to do it.") 

What got me thinking about this is that many of the sayings of Jesus are either disappointing or difficult - or both. We want magical and easy answers to life's dilemma and we don't get that. We get the difficult message of "love your neighbor" (who turns out to be everyone) and "lose your life." We want something other, different. 

The saying I look at this week is one most people have never heard: "Be passersby." This saying comes from the Gospel of Thomas and I spent a good bit of time talking about how and why we have the particular books in the Christian Scriptures that we do. I personally believe that this is most important information for us to know. 

After this, I seek to apply what this saying might mean for us.

The full text I spoke from is below.

Much love,

Bill Kerley

To download the text in .pdf, click here

To download the slides in .pdf, click here

To download the audio file in .mp3, click here

Dear Folks -

If you were present in Ordinary Life this week, you heard Bryan Fillette make an appeal for a program called "Hospitality With EAC Friends." If you would like to assist with this, contact Bryan at 318-613-1194 or by e-mail at gary.fillette@bmc.edu

One of the things that it means to be on an authentic religious and true spiritual path is to be free. My experience is that I am always finding places in my life where I am not free. One of the ways I personally discover this is by paying attention to what scares me. This is why I have come to believe that anxiety is the ego's take on genuine freedom.

This week in Ordinary Life I looked at some teachings of Jesus that underline the pacifist nature of both Jesus and the movement he started. He was against any system that oppressed people. What are we not seeing about our current situation? Where are we not free? These are the questions I attempt to deal with in the talk I gave in Ordinary Life this week. The full text that I use is below. As is often the case, the audio version is different in some significant ways.

Much love, Bill Kerley

Click here to Download Text_20110724

Click here to Download Slides_20110724

Click here to Download Audio_20110724

Dear Folks -

This week in Bill's absence, we will hear from Judy Wilbratte. Judy is
a compelling teacher of the Enneagram, a vital and useful tool for
psychological understanding and spiritual growthThe title of her talk is
"Working With Your Enneagram Pattern and the 'Inner Observer.'" She'll
be talking about how behavior follows thinking and will be linking what
shewill teach to what the Zen Master said in the talk he gave recently
inOrdinary Life. This presentation will be for those familiar and
unfamiliar with the Enneagram.

In other news...Ordinary Life is now on FaceBook and Twitter. Check out
the links below:

www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Life/170099756389305

www.twitter.com/ordinarylifenow

(The Twitter feed has updates about Bill's trip with the SPUMC Choir!)

And finally, the Ordinary Life Book Club is also on FaceBook at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Life-Book-Group/155949084459015.

Hope you can join in all the fun!

Be Well,
Susanna Hooper

Click here to Download Presentation Slides St. Paul -ZEN.pdf

Click here to Download audio 20110717.mp3

Dear Ones -

If you are new to Ordinary Life and want to know the thinking that lies behind
the current series I am doing, please visit the Ordinary Life website. There is
an explanation there -

www.ordinarylife.org

This information is also posted on my personal webside -

http://www.billkerley.com/index.html

I have a growing concern for the divisiveness that is growing among and within
various religious groups. My commitments are to increase religious literacy,
because it is a lack of such that underlies such short-sighted and ignorant
positions taken by many, and to bring together spiritual insights and
psychological principles that can contribute in practical ways to our growing in
freedom and love.

In an effort to increase interest in, awareness of and attendance at Ordinary
Life, we have created a Twitter account for Ordinary Life.

You can follow Ordinary Life on Twitter at

www.twitter.com/ordinarylifenow

This will be a way, for those of you who have Twitter accounts to "follow"
Ordinary Life and effortlessly pass on invites and information about what our
gathering is about. We'll see how this experiment works.

As for this week:

At one point in his teaching Jesus said to one who would follow him - "Let the
dead bury their dead." Marcus Borg says this is the most radical of Jesus'
sayings. I hope to explain why and what it might mean for us when we gather this
week. I'm calling the talk I want to give -

Wanted! Not Dead, But Alive!

I hope, if you are in the Houston area, you'll be able to attend Ordinary Life
this week. I look forward to seeing you.

Much love,

Bill Kerley

Click here to Download Presentation Slides 7:3:11 - Wanted!.pdf

Click here to Download audio 20110703.mp3