WEEKLY PODCAST | In Between.140

Happy Birthday to Bill!

This man, the one pictured below with Jesus in his eye, is 86 today! We are so lucky to have kept him around this long and to have been graced by his teachings, jokes, and magic tricks….ahem…miracles.

Today’s topic is unconditional love and human belonging. Light and not light at once. Have you experienced unconditional love, and if so, how? Do you experience belonging, and if so, where? How might we extend circles of belonging to the very edges so that our net is wide enough to include all?

I hope you get some food for thought, and thanks for listening.

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There are old ideas that can inspire new thinking.

There are old ways that continue to evolve, thus remaining perpetually new.

Today we talk about the mystical Jewish idea of G-d. In the Christian tradition, we have to problem writing out the name G-O-D and often assign it a corporeal form and specific gender. The mystical Jewish G-d, however, is both formless and boundless. It is more verb than noun, more presence than entity.

A few beautiful ideas:

1. One of the 13 attributes of G-d is compassion and mercy, or rahamim. Very close to the Hebrew word for “womb” it is often described as “womb love.” G-d is a cosmic womb.

2. G-d is unpronounceable, unknowable, but also entirely knowable because it is everywhere all the time. This omnipresence is “the breath of life” or ruah.

3. YHWH, which we spell out and pronounce as YA-WAY, echoes the sound of an in-breath and out-breath.

4. Breath, the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, is the very life force of the entire planet. We are “interbreathing.” To understand this is to understand the tender reality of interconnectedness.

5. The Kabbalah is not a book to buy but a way to study, best done with a teacher or through contemplative practice.

I hope you enjoy this chat, and that you continue to wrestle with and evolve your understanding of the great mystery.

SUNDAY LECTURE | You Are My Sunshine

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

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Summary of Ordinary Life for August 13, 2023

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Dear Ones -

Registration for the day with Suzanne Stabile is now open. To register click here.

The experience is being called:

The Path Between Us:
The Enneagram and Relationships

She will be with us from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 30. She will also return for the Ordinary Life hour that Sunday.

If you are unfamiliar with the Enneagram, it is a personality typing system that is used by most spiritual directors to aid in spiritual growth and understanding of one’s Self.

I have asked Brooke Summers-Perry to come and use the Ordinary Life hour on Sunday, September 10 and do a good introduction to the Enneagram. You will want to be sure to attend this time. There is, of course, no charge for this time.

I called the time in Ordinary Life this week -

“You Are My Sunshine”

Three pieces came together this week to help me offer my current interpretation of the phrase “our Father” which is found in the version of the Lord’s Prayer most people are familiar with. The pieces were two songs - “You Are My Sunshine” and “Comin’ In On a Wing and a Prayer” - and the advice of Augustine to “pray as if everything depended on God and live as if everything depended on you.” The Lord’s Prayer was created in a time and served a purpose that we can know about only academically. But, properly understood and used it can serve us in providing identity, memory, and meaning. Though we do not have the understanding of God that their world-view allowed them to have, we can have an understanding of God that is as intimate as theirs.

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

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

Our podcast, “In Between,” can be accessed through the Ordinary Life web site.

If you would like to know how to make a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here for video instructions.

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 of today’s talk, use the audio player below.

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

WEEKLY PODCAST | In Between.139

Today’s podcast involves some singing, some laughing, some puppies, and, of course, some talking. If there is a takeaway, it is this:

We are descended from light. Because we share this common origin, we are also all interconnected. As such, we belong to one another.

As you know, we are on this kick about developing a new understanding of God, a big enough understanding that includes all of our beautiful differences - even our differences about God. These are just “small stories” that are trying to fit us into a much larger story, a cosmic story if you will. The cosmic story follows the same laws of nature no matter where we are in time and space whereas our God stories change from place to place. We might consider whether the stories we know enlarge our understanding of our cosmic origins or limit it.

We evolve just as our ideas about God do. The old ideas are not inauthentic, just iterations of our developing consciousness. How might we continue to evolve them?