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Category Archives: Spirituality

Study: Most Catholics aren't searching for spirituality online

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Washington

Most U.S. Catholics are not looking for spirituality online; in fact, half of them are unaware the church even has an online presence, according to researchers at Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

The most widely used communication tool in Catholic church is the parish bulletin, followed by a diocesan newspaper or magazine -- in print form -- which one in four adult Catholics has read in the last three months, CARA reports.

Narrowing the focus on Catholics who attend Mass each week, CARA said 13 percent of them read Catholic blogs and 17 percent view religious material on YouTube.

These findings and other trends among U.S. Catholics were presented Oct. 10 by CARA's Melissa Cidade, director of pastoral assistance surveys and services, and Mark Gray, director of Catholic polls, to a group of editors in Washington attending a Catholic Press Association/Catholic News Service Liaison Committee meeting.

CARA's communication findings were of particular interest to the group. Robert DeFrancesco, CPA president and editor and associate publisher of The Catholic Sun, newspaper of the Phoenix diocese, said the study affirms the good work the Catholic press is doing and also highlights the work they still have cut out for them in balancing print and online efforts.

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He said it reveals how "younger Catholics are not clamoring for news online" -- which could be particularly disheartening to Catholic journalists who focus on their online product, but also needs to be balanced with the finding that one in four Catholics overall have read a diocesan paper recently -- primarily in print -- and eight in 10 readers described these papers as good or excellent.

The fact that print versions of diocesan papers still reach so many Catholics is something to think about, he noted, especially with the limited resources of many diocesan newspapers.

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Study: Most Catholics aren't searching for spirituality online

Gemstones Recalls Talking Islam, Christianity and Spirituality with Lupe Fiasco – Video

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Gemstones Recalls Talking Islam, Christianity and Spirituality with Lupe Fiasco
Gemstones talks about what God told him to tell Lupe Fiasco, his interaction with his former label mate and where the passion behind his music comes from. Re...

By: The Wade-O Radio Video Channel

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Gemstones Recalls Talking Islam, Christianity and Spirituality with Lupe Fiasco - Video

'Darling' takes on spirituality in Richard Rodriguez's terms

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Richard Rodriguez's "Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography" appears at first to have been mistitled; it is neither a book about the spirit, strictly, nor an autobiography in any common sense. Rather, it's a collection of essays some of which were originally published in Harper's, Kenyon Review and the Wilson Quarterly that approach the larger questions of faith and character through a broad array of filters, from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the legacy of Cesar Chavez, the collapse of newspapers to the reimagining of public space in a digital age.

"I did not intend to write a spiritual autobiography," Rodriguez acknowledges in a brief "Note to the Reader." And the more we read, the more we understand what he means. For him, spirituality is not some isolated aspect of existence, distinct from secular experience; it is, instead, inextricable from the secular, a way of moving through, of being in, the world.

Rodriguez has been immersed in these sorts of issues from the start of his career: otherness, identity, the line between how people see us and how we see ourselves. His first book, "Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez" (1982), was an audacious account of coming to terms with himself as American, even to the point of walking away from the traditions of his immigrant home.

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In its aftermath, he was criticized for betraying his heritage, although, in fact, he was after something more complicated, a way of understanding himself as a person in the middle, steeped in his history and yet at the same time a creation of the assimilated culture in which he lives.

It's a theme to which Rodriguez has returned throughout his writing life; in his 1990 piece "Late Victorians" (my favorite of his essays), he uses the Victorian elegance of San Francisco to reflect on both the decadence of the city's gay culture and the scourge of AIDS. "I have never looked for utopia on a map," he writes there. " If I respond to the metaphor of spring, I nevertheless learned, years ago, from my Mexican father, from my Irish nuns, to count on winter. The point of Eden for me, for us, is not approach but expulsion."

This idea of expulsion or, more accurately, separation resides at the center of "Darling," although Rodriguez is also drawn to seek out common ground. "The action of the terrorists," he writes of 9/11, "was a human action, conceived in error a benighted act. And yet I worship the same God as they, so I stand in some relation to those men." For him, this is a key point, that the Christian, Jewish and Muslim God ("the desert God," he calls it) is one and the same, since if "the Muslim claims Abraham as father, as does the Jew, as do I," then we are all siblings under the skin.

But lest that seem an easy bit of sophistry, Rodriguez has no interest in smoothing over what keeps us apart. To make this explicit, he turns to his childhood, when he worshiped at "two temples": "Sacred Heart Catholic Church, at 39th and J streets, in Sacramento [and the] Alhambra Theatre constructed in 1927 to resemble a tall white Muslim fortress." It's a stunning image of duality, not just between the religious and the worldly, the ancient and the American, but also between the Western and the Moorish, a symbol of the culture clash (on every level) that "Darling" means to explore.

The best material in the book pushes this theme provocatively: One piece suggests that Jerusalem is important less as a historical site than as an elaborate construction, "as condensed, as self-referential as Rubik's Cube." In the title essay, he uses his friendship with a divorced woman to suggest a link between the feminist and gay rights movements; "it was the brave suffragette," he insists, "(and not the tragic peacock Oscar Wilde) who rescued my sexuality."

Rodriguez is especially vivid writing about loss, including a meditation on Las Vegas seen through the filter of a hospice visit to a friend who is dying of AIDS, and a fragmentary set of riffs on time and disappearance, in which he recalls a homeless man named Wayne ("I fear he may be dead") and one brief instant of transcendence in San Francisco's Tenderloin. "But here's the thing," he writes: "Wayne's smile. I have thought about this for twenty years or more. Wayne's smile said: did you get it? Wayne's smile said: remember this moment, it contains everything."

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'Darling' takes on spirituality in Richard Rodriguez's terms

'Homeless to Harvard:' Author Taps Spirituality to Help Others

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Liz Murray forgave her drug-addicted parents for her fractured childhood in the Bronx, as the family lived from one welfare check to the next. She moved out at 15, figuring it was safer living on the streets than in a home where there was more cocaine and heroin than food on the kitchen table.

"People are surprised by the poverty and think that I wasn't cared for," Murray told ABCNews.com. "But that wasn't the case -- I was deeply loved."

Murray, now 33 and married with two children, is the inspiration for the television movie "Homeless to Harvard."

Murray became a top student at a Manhattan alternative school and wrote an essay on her personal journey that won her an Ivy League scholarship. But getting into Harvard was only half the battle. She struggled to be socially accepted and it took her nearly a decade to complete her studies.

At the same time, she lived and cared for her father, who was then sober, but also dying from AIDS.

Murray's story of resiliency was fodder for her 2010 memoir, "Breaking Night." By the time she was 19, she was motivating others on speaking tours and by 22, she was conducting workshops to guide others struggling with life's curveballs.

Now, in a new chapter in her journey, Murray is helping youth struggling with homelessness at New York's Covenant House, a nonprofit that provides shelter and support services for the city's youth population.

She is using storytelling as a tool to help abandoned youth tap into their inner spirit and to help them actualize their dreams. "Something in their family structure has fallen apart," said Murray.

Her work is part of a psychology and spirituality program at Columbia University's Teachers College, a pioneering effort to use meditation therapies and mindfulness to help teens overcome trauma and successfully transition into adulthood.

"I always had a mind to go back to school," said Murray. "Then one day I picked up a New York Times article and the title was 'Merging Spirituality and Clinical Psychology at Columbia,' What? It sounded interesting."

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'Homeless to Harvard:' Author Taps Spirituality to Help Others

VHC First Wednesdays | Nancy Jay Crumbine – Words, Creativity, and Spirituality – Video

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VHC First Wednesdays | Nancy Jay Crumbine - Words, Creativity, and Spirituality
Drawing from Emily Dickinson and Annie Dillard, Dartmouth professor Nancy Jay Crumbine examines the interconnection between creativity and spirituality. Spon...

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VHC First Wednesdays | Nancy Jay Crumbine - Words, Creativity, and Spirituality - Video

Sandy B. – AA Speaker – "The Power of Spirituality and the Twelve Steps" – Video

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Sandy B. - AA Speaker - "The Power of Spirituality and the Twelve Steps"
INCREDIBLY moving workshop by one of my favorite AA speakers, Sandy B. from Florida. This is 5 hours plus of recovery gold, and is sure to be a wonderful exp...

By: Odomtology 12-Step Recovery Media

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Sandy B. - AA Speaker - "The Power of Spirituality and the Twelve Steps" - Video

The Effects of Antidepressants on Serotonin, the Pineal Gland and Spirituality – Video

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The Effects of Antidepressants on Serotonin, the Pineal Gland and Spirituality
Dr. Ann Blake Tracy - http://www.drugawareness.org LEGAL CONSULTING EXPERT WITNESS SERVICES Our Executive Director, Ann Blake Tracy, PhD, has been research...

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The Effects of Antidepressants on Serotonin, the Pineal Gland and Spirituality - Video

Unity Church of Muskegon launches new 'Spirituality Unleashed' effort with the help of shamanic storyteller Ted Jauw

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MUSKEGON, MI With the help of two artists and storytellers,Unity Church of Muskegonthis month will launch a new spirituality effort created to unite people of all ages and backgrounds.

As part of a new Sunday evening program called, Spirituality Unleashed, Grand Rapids-based couple Ted Jauw and Kate Henriott will present The Secret Life of Butterflies on Sunday, Oct. 6, from 7-9 p.m. at 2052 Bourdon St.

I will be talking about what happens in your life when bad things happen and what are the secrets to turning that around using the butterfly and my own life as the metaphor, said Jauw, a California native.I am a storyteller and I use music, art and culture to tell stories that have meaning to people.

The churchs leader, Rev. Diane Stark, said she initiated the Spirituality Unleashed event to reach younger residents, among other reasons.

I think that the community needs to have the opportunity to have a new kind of spirituality. The monotheistic, typical Christian church is not connecting with younger audiences, Stark said. Were all going to die and grow old and close if we dont morph into a multigenerational form.

Stark, who has preached at the church since 2012, said the evening program is way to offer an activity that deviates from the churchs typical Sunday morning service format.

"This is an opportunity to dream a new future for ourselves in terms of how we play, how we create, and how we hold each other in warmth and understanding, Stark said.

In the past, the church has offered the public other unique presentations. In June,actor and Hollywood Star John C. Reilly visited the church and performed with his musical group.

Jauw, a student of Native American faith and an ordained priest of various African spiritual traditions, said he considers himself an Old School storyteller. He and his wife have spoken to several groups ranging from college students, festival crowds and Christian congregations to humanist and atheist entities such as the Center of Inquiry.

Were received very well because what were doing is inclusive, Jauw said.

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Unity Church of Muskegon launches new 'Spirituality Unleashed' effort with the help of shamanic storyteller Ted Jauw


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