Do You Need a Spiritual Friend?

Although I have a circle of wonderful life-long friends, we generally don’t discuss our spirituality.  And when we do discuss spirituality, we sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye or hold the topic in the same high esteem as others (me) do.  Spirituality is a vulnerable subject, so it’s hard to let our guards down and reveal what…

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Religion: What’s the Point?

I live in one of the least religious cities in America, Portland, Oregon. We are progressive freethinkers who are generally a “spiritual but not religious” people.  Yet this religiously independent attitude, one that I am guilty of as well, keeps us spiritually stunted.  Karen Armstrong, one of our great contemporary religious scholars, has convinced me…

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Take God out of the Box

It is difficult for me to explain what I mean when I say the word God. It started in my teens, when I began to study the world’s religions, and I continue to stumble over my words when I share my thoughts about the Divine with my children. I envy those who can articulate, with…

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How to do Religion

Religious scholar and author Karen Armstrong, gives me hope for a modern religious renaissance. She describes in her book, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts how we have lost touch with the brain’s right hemisphere, which is the side of the brain that thinks in myth, metaphors, and symbols. The explosion of technology…

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