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 I learned to body surf in the Canary Islands  when I was 20. I saw some guy riding a  huge  wave, one arm extended like superman, his  torso jutting out of the wave. Being  twenty and immortal, this prairie boy (and poor swimmer) thought  he’d give it a shot.  Out I swam. The bottom  dropped away. I realized  that this guy was quite  a bit further  out than I thought. It was then that  I felt the  undertow. It wasn’t exactly a rip tide,  thank God. But very quickly I … [Read more...]

I am pleased to introduce my readers to Trevor Malkinson, a philosopher, and relatively recent convert to Christianity. Trevor is studying theology at the Vancouver School of Theology, and we're delighted to have him as a member of Canadian Memorial United Church. Trevor got lit up by The Apostle's Creed, and this was too good not to share it with my readers. One of the advantages of evolutionary theology is that it honours tradition, even while reinterpreting it (transcend and include). Trevor … [Read more...]

 Is anybody else confused about the mixed messages we get from our financial  gurus? Should I buy more in order to keep the economic engine humming? Ok,  but overconsumption is killing our planet. The next day on the news I hear  that we're overextended financially. We're in debt up to our eyeballs. We need  to save and pay down our debts. But not too much or we'll trigger a recession.  The fed moves interests rates up and down to incentive spending or saving,  and like trained animals … [Read more...]

I was riffing on the lectionary text for this past Sunday, Jesus' healing of a man with  leprosy. I'd like to share a take on it that came to me out of the proverbial blue on Sunday  morning as I was doing a final edit of my sermon. It occasioned an almost complete  rewrite of the sermon in  less than two hours. I don't typically rehash what I've already  written in a sermon, but this  one grabbed me by the ahem...lapels and I want to get it out  there. We've heard lots of sermons on … [Read more...]

 I just returned from co-leading a workshop in Chicago with the wonderful and  radiant Barbara Marx Hubbard who is the future present in her unrelenting  evocation of our human potential. To be honest, it's a little intimidating co- presenting with someone who is so on-purpose that her whole life has become  that purpose. If she wasn't so loving and loveable one's ego could take a  beating! :-) Barbara has a knack for asking great framing questions that in the asking shift  the … [Read more...]

 I keep running into a theological stumbling block for atheists and  progressive Christians alike. Namely, is God personal? Both camps  tend to hear this question as "Is God a person?" Progressives want to  dissociate themselves completely from the mythic Old Man In the  Sky of the Bible who intervenes episodically to rescue us. (Never  mind that there are many other images that tend to get overlooked in  this conversation.) This is also the God that atheists reject, and they get … [Read more...]

Look! I Am a Whale[1]  We live on the sun’s playground. Here, Everyone gets what they want. Sometimes the body of a beautiful woman, Sometimes the body of a beautiful man, Sometimes the body of both in one.   We used to play that kind of tag In the animal world too. Now a mouse, Now a tiger, Look!  I am a whale—I got tired of the land, Went back to the ocean for awhile. What power is it in our sinew and mind That will not die, That keeps … [Read more...]

 The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Friends  and reviewers had described it as esoteric, imagistic, and even incomprehensible. I  expected that there would be very little narrative thread to follow. Actually, there is a  clear narrative thread, but it's Big History. Malick sets the story of a Texan family, the  O'Briens, in the mid-1950's, within the contextual narrative of evolutionary history. So, the first thing to say about this film is that … [Read more...]

 One of my blog readers asked me to provide some perspective on the  difference between "spiritual" and  "supernatural", noting that  everybody these days wants to be spiritual, without believing in the  "supernatural".  Yet, isn't "spirit", by definition, other than natural? First, let's clarify the word "spiritual", because there is a whole lot of  confusion out there. Everybody uses the  same word, but often with  vastly different assumptions about its meaning. Ken Wilber … [Read more...]

 I loved One Week with Marilyn, the film that tells the story of the  shooting of the film The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Munroe and  Sir Laurence  Olivier. In the process of shooting the film, a third Production  Assistant falls  madly in love with Marilyn. Well, every man on set falls in love  with her, but  Marilyn develops a thing for this young man, and of  course,  what chance does he have? There is another young, attractive  woman, who is  available and … [Read more...]