Is it really Love? Spiritual Way of the Six Loves

In this episode, we begin a series on spiritual discernment, how to find out what is Gods will for us in different situations.  Or if you prefer, what is the spiritual purpose of one's life.  First we look at what will not be covered in this series regarding spiritual discernement.  A related issue is how spirituality is defined.  In particular, what is meant by the phrase "I am spiritual but not reli...

At last we have climbed the ladder to reach gratitude.  Along the way we have looked at several values that help us reach gratitude.  Gratitude is possible about little things such as a good meal or a good movie.  What we aim for is a broader understanding of gratitude.  We look again at Fr. Thomas Merton's advise and discover one more value, humility.  With so many values supporting gratitude, how do...

How can beauty and wonder help us reach gratitude?  When we see beauty, we often feel a sense of wonder at what we have witnessed.  This sense of wonder can help us break out of our bubble of personal concerns.  Beauty and wonder can remind there is so much more in the world besides our own daily routine and struggles.  Especially in relation to gratitude, wonder can lead to joy, which can lead to hope, two key values we have looke...

We consider joy in the growing list of values that can lead us to gratitude. Joy is something that most of us have experienced before, but it helps to stop and think more about it. What is joy? Is it the same as happiness or is it different? How do we find joy? One challenge for many of us, how do we hold onto joy when we feel crowded by many different concerns? How do we tell good joy from bad joy? We continue to find that there i...

One of the stepping stones to gratitude is caring.  Most of us have experience in caring relationships.  The capacity to care maybe what makes humans unique.  Caring is central to the Golden Rule in its various forms, giving us a minimal definition of community.  When we learn we can have an impact on the lives of others, it can change our own attitude about ourselves dramatically.

To see more of Craig’s books and music go to www...

What is the purpose of righteous anger?  Any kind of anger is a short term emotion.  It can only be sustained by finding new targets to resent and with which to be angry.  Righteous anger raises our awareness, but should lead to compassionate confidence.  Compassionate confidence is more durable over time since it involves attitude an beliefs, not just an emotional reaction.

To see more of Craig's books and music go to www.craigowe...

How does our ultimate loyalty to spiritual transformation inform our other loyalties? In this episode, we will look at loyalty to institutions and loyalty to beliefs and groups who share our beliefs. While institutions and groups who share our beliefs are important, when we depend on them too much for identity and a sense of purpose, trouble can easily arise. Our ultimate loyalty to spiritual transformation can give us a larger per...

In this episode, we finally have an answer to our question, to what are we ultimately loyal. Consideration is given to a problem we all struggle with: the willingness to say and do anything to hold onto our pride, power and privilege. To counter this problem, we must commit to a process of spiritual transformation, and this is to what we are ultimately loyal. [In episodes 12,13 and 40-52 I explain in detail how this works]. How thi...

I suggest three boundaries that we should look for to avoid crossing into corrupt righteous anger. First, we look at the admonition "love your enemies and pray for those who oppose you." What does that really mean? Second, that no political view, religious or ethical belief can enirely fit every situation we encounter. And finally, the most important of the three, "the worst kind of evil is evil that ALMOST makes sense." After expl...

When does righteous anger go bad? In this episode we will look at an example of corrupt righteous anger.  Looking at a passage from the Hebrew prophet Nahum, there are major differences between his version of righteous anger and what we saw in Amos and Jeremiah.  There is no hope of renewal, no concern about the poor in Nahum, only hatred and a desire for the complete destruction of those whom he views as the enemy.  How does one c...

What is righteous anger? What is unique about it?  These are the questions we will look at in this episode.  In examining an example of righteous anger from the Hebrew prophets, we see to what that anger is related.  Most of all, what is the source of the moral urgency in the righteous anger of the Hebrew prophets?  This brings us to one of the most important questions in these episodes: How does righteous anger go bad?  How we ans...

In this episode we are taking a new direction.  We start with the challenge that the Book of Revelation makes, Who is your God?, or To what are we ultimately loyal?  The theme that will tie together the next few episodes is:  Loyalty without integrity leads to fanaticism and idolatry.  Exploring what this statement means, we look at the Hebrew prophets'  ideal of integrity and the values that support that ideal.  If you have read a...

    In the last episode I suggested what was the real message and spirituality of the book of Revelation.  It is NOT telling us to be passive, waiting for God to intervene in history as all kinds of horrible things happen to the earth.  The author of Revelation copied heavily from the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.  Both Daniel and Revelation were written to religious groups who ...

Finally, we are at the point of finding the answers to our question 'what is the spirituality of the Book of Revelation?'  As I have commented in previous episodes, what the Book of Revelation is about is answering questions about the problem of evil.  If God is all powerful, how can God let the community of faithful believers be persecuted, killed and tortured?  [Once again I am drawing upon Dr. Crai...