As I listen to people’s conversations about God, I’m always interested in hearing how they view their relationship with God. More times than not what I hear are details about what God is doing in their lives via the great gifts he’s giving them or perhaps even the opposite – those things they perceive as ‘needs-to-be-filled’ for which they’re praying/waiting.

Certainly it is true that the gifts of God are many, and that God knows everything – ranging from our needs to the desires of our hearts – before we even utter a thought regarding them. And I believe it is true that God blesses us with a constant stream of gifts so numerous that many of them are taken for granted: our senses of sight and sound, taste and touch, sunrises and sunsets, friends and family. The list is infinite, really.

Even so, in the midst of all of this great gifting, we would benefit from pausing to give ourselves a heart-check:

Do we sometimes mistake the gifts of God for a relationship with God? Continue reading…

Who among as at some point has not felt ‘offended’? Someone says something rude to us, something to belittle us or make fun of the way we look – or does something just to make themselves feel superior by making us feel inferior. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Think of the people in your life who must always be correct, have the last word, or elevate themselves by being seen as the wise teacher (even though everybody else just thinks they’re a fill-in-the-blank!).

Recently someone did this with me – it wasn’t as much what they were saying as much as it was something I felt they were projecting – giving me ‘credit’ (of sorts) for thinking something I wasn’t even thinking. And so the more I thought about what I wasn’t thinking about…well, the more offensive to me it became. And as this person has been a friend for some time, there was ample baggage I could heap on the issue. I wanted to tell this person, as a roommate of mine in college used to say, ‘Hey, don’t throw your muck in my backyard!’ I wanted to say ‘deal with your own stuff but leave me out of it.’ Continue reading…

One of the challenges of spirituality is keeping the language grounded. By ‘grounded,’ I mean using terms to which people can relate rather than antiquated ones that a lot of people have heard, but can’t really track with in everyday lingo. There are a lot of strong spiritual principles for living that are helpful to address, but unless we can frame them in more familiar and useful ways, my experience tells me that they are likely to do more harm than good.

For me, the word ‘righteous’ (and all of its derivatives) is such a word. It is one of those religious-sounding, antiquated words that we may be better off reframing. For instance, ask most people what they think when they hear the word ‘righteous’ and I’m betting they say something like, “the need to be more pure and holy; to be more disciplined in avoiding sin.” And if they did say something like that, let’s say as they strolled through the local mall or conversed at your favorite coffee shop, what would people overhearing such a conversation think? Continue reading…

According to “Integral Philosophy,” a person doesn’t move up the spiral of greater consciousness (and thus begin making necessary course corrections) until their present stage of development becomes unlivable. By ‘unlivable’ we mean that there are recurring incidents – disasters, if you will – that no longer allow them to remain with the status quo. It becomes evident that something has to change, and quickly!

We might even think in terms of being ‘extruded’ – forced out under pressure.

As I look around the world these days, I see plenty of evidence telling me that things are unworkable. Just name a sector – government, religion, business, education – that isn’t chock-full of disasters. Continue reading…

We live in a busy, hectic and sometimes crazy world full of seemingly endless tasks and activities that all beg for our participation. It happens at work, at home, in our spiritual fellowships – the call to be more involved always seems to be close at hand.

What is even more difficult is that many of the things on our radar screens are really worthy of our personal investment. But by doing so, by giving in and yielding to their call, it isn’t long before we begin to realize that we’re stretched too thin and not doing anything really well. Continue reading…