I recently received a question about experiences in meditation. I am reproducing in part my response here on the blog because I feel many people have a similar question. The experiences you are having are sometimes called "consolations." I tend to think of them as glimpses of awakening. Everything seems to make sense in those…
Living in Mystery
There are things we don't know. Some of you will feel that I am stating the blatantly obvious. Others will feel that my claim is patently false. Hopefully, the majority of you are willing to consider at least that we as individuals don't each know everything there is to know. Our culture often seems to…
Thirty-eight Thousand gods and Counting
Every religion and every subdivision of those religions purports to reveal God to us, and all of them fail. What they reveal instead are gods, middle managers at best, what the Hebrew scriptures called demiurges. I say this because, quite frankly, we imagine God should be our personal errand boy, taking care of this and…
Pollyanna Western Christianity
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…
Complexity and Confusion
I had a bit of an epiphany the other day as I was walking the dog. I have a fair number of epiphanies walking Roxy. My epiphany came in the form of questions: Does the Divine have some sort of communicative disorder? Should we take up a collection for a special education teacher so that…
God is Dead, and I Know Who Did It!
God is dead. At least, one version of God is dead. Do you know how you can tell? Is there anything alive that doesn't change? Nope. Everything alive is changing all the time. New cells are being made to replace old cells that die. Every living thing ages, even if almost imperceptibly. If a living…
Adversity
Something bad is going to happen to you. It's a matter of time. Quite possibly, over the course of a lifetime, many bad somethings will happen to you. As I see it, you are faced with a few choices. First and foremost, you need to give yourself time to heal and grieve whatever loss has…
Chronic Pain and Spiritual Life
It's estimated that just over twenty percent of Americans suffer from chronic pain. I find that to be a frightening number, and I am among them. There is no shortage of theories about why people suffer from chronic pain, and the theories transcend physical ressons. In truth, above the age of fifty most people have…
When THAT Guy Shows Up
I suspect we all have had that friend - a good guy at heart but completely lacking in social graces. If you invite him over, the odds are that something will be spilled and something else broken before he leaves. He tends to speak just a little too loudly, act just a bit too impulsively,…
Random Thoughts
If the things that most of us wouldn't think of eating - rattlesnake, scorpion, rodents, all manner of creepy crawly things, endangered species, insects covered in chocolate, and so on - are all said to "taste like chicken," maybe it's time to take another look at whether or not we should be eating chicken. If…
Craig Bergland 