I recognize that nobody is going to nominate me for the annual person of the year award in the above mentioned community, but I am good with that. I will just put something else in the spot on my shelf that I had reserved for that award. The truth is that while the immediate therapeutic…
I was watching a presentation by Joan Chittister recently as part of the Spiritual Directors International annual conference. In it, Sister Joan put forth the Benedictine steps to humility as a solution to what she - correctly, I believe - sees as the loss of values in our overly individualistic society. One of the qualities…
It's really just that simple. If you are wondering how or why that can be, it is because ignoring truth or teaching things contrary to truth is lying, and lying is a sin. To compound the sin, persecuting people or groups of people is always sinful. Also sinful are prejudice and spreading rumors about others.…
I should start by saying I don't like people fighting for money. Not a fan of boxing, I believe cage fighting is as barbaric as throwing Christians to the lions for entertainment doring the Roman Empire, and I believe that one day we will look back at the "sport" of encouraging people of color to…
If something is an obligation, is doing it really faith or rather fear of punishment? Those of us raised in small-c catholic traditions may recall the idea of holy days of obligation. These were days wherein church attendance was considered mandatory, and failure to attend was considered sin unless you had an officially sanctioned reason…
I have noticed something about western Christianity lately. Across all perspectives, from conservative through moderate to progressive, there is an assumption that we all live and always have lived perfect lives. They act as if we are all the family from Leave it to Beaver or from Cosby. Parents are always wonderful, they are never…
I get a number of emails each day that are sale notices for ebooks. Yesterday I happened to glace at one of the descriptions of a book that read, "...the Church contributes to society by forming the conscience of people." I almost fell out of my chair! If that's not a line straight out of…
To be completely honest, I have struggled with this issue for years. Living, as we do, in an era where a constant procession of spiritual leaders of all stripes have been outed as serial abusers of those in their charge, I don't see how we can avoid dealing with the issue and asking the question:…
Western culture tends to believe that history is linear. In truth, at least as far as our personal histories are concerned, it's more accurate to believe they are circular. We keep returning to the scene of our trauma by recreating it with a new cast of characters and hoping it will turn out differently this…
It is almost predictable. Watch the White people scramble to purge the record of racism and White Supremacy in America. Scrub the history books and convince yourselves that you have done something worthwhile. No more "Gone With the Wind," get it out of here so we can pretend that never happened. For the record, I…
Craig Bergland 