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Sadhguru

Sadhguru:There is something called knowledge, which is an accumulated mass of memory,and there is something called knowing, which is sheer perception of life.Knowledge is just your conclusion about life. If you come to a conclusion aboutlife from accumulated knowledge, it becomes prejudiced knowledge. It will notallow you to experience anything afresh. Nothing new will ever happen to you.Knowledge is useful for your survival process but it never liberates you.

Should you not take care of your survival? You definitelyshould, but when a little worm with a minuscule fraction of the brain you have,can survive pretty well on this planet, should you spend your whole life onsurvival when you have such a big brain? In the yogic systems, we look at themind as having sixteen parts. They say just one of these sixteen parts isenough to be super-successful in the material world. The remaining fifteenshould be focused on your inner wellbeing because that is a much vaster spacethan the material world. Even scientists today say that just four percent ofthe universe is creation, and the rest is dark matter and dark energy. So, fourpercent of your mind is enough but the ancient yogis were a little moregenerous. They gave you a little more than six percent to very successfullyconduct your material life!

So, with all due respect to the scriptures, it isaccumulated knowledge. If it was a book of engineering or literature orhistory, I would say read it. If it is a book of knowledge of the self, if youare here and alive, it is better to read this book that is yourself than toread some other book. You are a book written by the creator himself. It is bestto read this if you want to know about this life. Whatever other books youtake, even if they happened to be Gods own words, if it is written in somelanguage obviously it was written by human beings. Human minds are given toenormous distortion. If you see something today with your own eyes and tellyour neighbor, he goes and tells someone else. If it goes through twenty-fivepeople in twenty-four hours and comes back to you, can you recognize thatstory? It is very obvious that human beings are capable of enormous distortion.When something has come down for thousands of years, you can imagine how muchcould have happened to it on the way.

If you want to know yourself, dont read a book writtenby someone else. If you read about yourself in a book, you are not real, youare just a story. You need to look within. You must have the necessaryinstruments to turn around and look at this. I am not trying to trasheverything that has ever been written but if you learn to go into the deeperdimensions of who you are, you will see, all scriptures will be stale.

When Krishna was giving the Gita to Arjuna, every timeKrishna said something, Arjuna who received the best education in those daysbecause he was a prince, would say, But no. This scripture says somethingelse. He was referring to all the books he had read. Krishna laughed and said,When the light has risen within a human being, all your scriptures are like atank full of water when the flood has come.

If you are living in a desert, a tank full of watermay feel like an ocean to you. When the flood has come, what meaning does atank full of water have? When the creator is throbbing within you every moment,you must look within.

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The role of scriptures on the spiritual path - The Navhind Times

As Pope Francis prepares his exhortation, an anthropologist says Western agendas won't help the Amazon

What can the Church do to better serve the indigenous peoples of Amazonia? And what can she learn from Amazonian spirituality? These questions have been much discussed in light of last years Amazon synod, but often with little understanding of the spiritual concerns of the people in question.

Enthusiasts for the synod see it as a turning point for the whole Church in matters of ecology, liturgy and ordained ministry a great spiritual decolonisation. Its detractors see it as an existential threat to the Churchs doctrines and her preaching of the Gospel. One bishop recently expressed the desperate hope that the Pope would destroy the synods final document. But as someone who has spent many years studying Amazonian religions, I have been struck by the almost complete absence from the debate of any informed discussion of the spiritual practices and preoccupations of the people for whose benefit the synod was ostensibly convened.

Several years ago I spent seven months living in an indigenous community in Ecuador studying peoples spiritual experiences and religious beliefs. I was writing a doctoral thesis in social anthropology. Although these people lived outside Amazonia, their culture and beliefs strongly resemble those of the Amazon region and of lowland South America more broadly.

Those months in an indigenous village, and the scholarly study preceding and following on from them, were a formative period in my own spiritual journey. The spiritual lessons I learned there, so far from my own background in middle-class England, were part of what prompted me, two years later, to convert to Catholicism.

What I found in Ecuador and what the scholarly literature confirms across lowland South America is that the overriding concern of peoples engagement in religious activity is a quest for spiritual protection. This has often meant that the Church, especially her powers of exorcism, has received an enthusiastic reception. The characteristics of the Churchs traditional ceremonies, particularly in the Old Rite the ritualism, the mystery, the use of spiritually powerful substances and objects, even the use of a special ritual language are reminiscent of many features of the traditional indigenous exorcisms performed by shamans. One of the most un-Amazonian things that could happen in Amazonia, then, would be any further imposition of the secular, relativising and de-sacralising tendencies which have gained so much ground in the West.

In Ecuador, I found an indigenous community with a remarkable Catholic identity. The first missionaries arrived nearly 500 years ago, and it has never been easy. Until the 1980s much of the area was densely forested and accessible only on foot or horseback. Sometimes people would not see a priest for years. Nevertheless, although for a long time they refused to assimilate to the dominant colonial culture, they always gave the priest an enthusiastic welcome when he came to baptise their children and solemnise their marriages. When they were visited by a French scientific expedition at the beginning of the 20th century, it was reported that they identified themselves as Christians, to such an extent that the term Cristiano had become synonymous with their own name for themselves. Every life event was marked with religious ceremony and the expeditions ethnographer observed that they never forgot they were Catholics.

Even today, when most of the community is largely indifferent to Catholicism, they turn to the Churchs rituals whenever they or their loved ones are troubled by illness, manifestations of spirits, or the dead. On these occasions recourse is quickly made to all the therapeutic and exorcistic techniques available, including Catholic prayers, blessed candles, holy water, and baptism, all in the quest for spiritual protection.

A little background is necessary here.If you followed discussions surrounding the Amazon synod, you may be under the impression that Amazonian people live in an almost Rousseauian state of harmony with nature or they would, if only the West had not interfered. Alternatively, you may think that they are all animists and idol worshippers. Neither is a fair reflection of reality.

Their relationship with nature, harmonious in some respects, is fraught with existential struggle. In common with most of the indigenous societies of lowland South America, the tranquillity and harmony to which they aspire is actually a fragile achievement which must be constantly defended from the disruptive incursions of malevolent spirits, animals and the dead.

A great many animals in Amazonia, like the spirits of the forest and rivers, exist in a state of predatory competition with humans: they are seen as potential enemies. There is no Amazonian equivalent of St Francis. Their relationship with the dead before the arrival of Christianity was characterised by still more intense animosity and terror. The old stories they tell recount how the dead used to return from the grave to harass and kill the living, how animals used to take on human form and fatally disrupt society, how vampiric spirits would descend upon peoples houses forcing them to flee for their lives.

We may think such stories are tall tales with little historical truth, but to dismiss them would be to do a disservice to these peoples own experience of their place in the cosmos. This is what traditional Amazonian spirituality consists of: perilous encounters with animals and spirits, mortal combat with the unseen world, terror of the dead. These struggles, though nowadays less intense than they once were, continue to be a decisive feature of everyday life in indigenous communities across lowland South America to this day.

The spiritual elite at the centre of these existential struggles are the shamans who can cure and curse according to their whim, heal you, protect you or kill you, and who apply their skills in return for payment.The power they wield as a result is based as much on fear of their vengeance as upon anything else.

The difference the Church makes when it arrives in a shamanic society like this can be truly remarkable. I discovered in Ecuador that, despite all the religious indifference of the previous 50 years, the arrival of the Church was seared into the collective memory as a transformative turning point in the communitys history. It was the moment at which the spirits retreated, the distance between humans and animals increased, and the dead began to lie peacefully in the grave.

These dramatic changes in the balance of power in the cosmos were attributed to the effects of baptism. People told me that baptism conferred upon them the protection of the Spirit of God, that it drove back the spirits and warded off the animals. Those who were baptised died in peace and maintained a benign relationship with their living relatives.

All this amounted to a revolution in their relations with the cosmos and its inhabitants, opening up for them a far greater and more secure space of tranquillity than that which, according to their own oral history, they had ever previously known. For these people, the spiritual protection of baptism, which for hundreds of years they had received accompanied by the exorcisms contained in the old Latin rite, was considered to be a matter of life and death. It was a bulwark against the darkness which had hitherto pressed in upon them and against which so much of their energy had been directed.

This is the way it appears in their own collective memory. If we are to listen and give credence to such a memory we must conclude that, far from being a colonial imposition, the sacraments of the Church effected a liberation. Catholicism did not destroy their identity; rather, it made possible a flourishing previously curtailed by so many spiritual assaults.

But why couldnt they turn to their own shamans for protection? Well, they did, and they still do. There are certain similarities between shamans and Catholic priests. However, there are also crucial differences. Of vital importance in the Churchs mission in Amazonia is the fact that, unlike that of the shaman, the priests power is not dependent upon a potentially malevolent spiritual helper. Furthermore, it does not (or at least should not) come at a cost. Another difference is that the protection offered by a shaman is temporary, provisional and unreliable; it is always vulnerable to the shamans caprice, to challenge from another shaman or from a more powerful spirit. By contrast, that which is offered by the priest is far more durable, definitive and unambiguously benevolent.

At the same time, the similarities between the ceremonies performed by the priest and those of the shaman meant that indigenous people easily recognised the spiritual power offered by the Church. It is, in many ways, the same kind of power, using some of the same kinds of objects, substances, gestures and language. The shaman, being called upon to cleanse people and places from malign spiritual influence, uses a variety of spiritually powerful instruments and techniques: objects imbued with auxiliary spirits, libations of tobacco juice and ayahuasca, tobacco smoke and rum. Many shamanic ceremonies also involve a special ritual language, unintelligible to the audience.

The priest, also cleansing and protecting people and places from spirits, has at his disposal an array of exorcistic and protective objects and techniques: the relics of the saints, the smoke of incense, the holy water of asperges, holy oil and the rites of the Mass itself. In all this exorcistic, protective and therapeutic work Latin served him and his Amazonian flock as a uniquely Christian ritual language, simultaneously distinct from that of their own shamans and from the language of their dealings with the Spanish or Portuguese.

Interestingly, there is one other point of similarity between a shaman and a Catholic priest, and this involves sexual abstinence. The power of both priest and shaman is dependent upon a unique relationship with the normally unseen world of spirits, which sets them apart from ordinary life. The shaman relies on alliances with auxiliary spirits, with whom he typically enters into quasi-marital relations. These spiritual relationships at times impose upon him periods of sexual abstinence, especially during his apprenticeship. For the priest, another kind of quasi-marital relationship binds him not to any local spirit, but to God himself, and his sexual abstinence is permanent. Here there is a clear connection for both shaman and priest between sexual abstinence and spiritual power. Perhaps this might be an indigenous Amazonian argument for a celibate priesthood.

Today, there are some people wanting to give the Church a more Amazonian face. People have suggested that mandatory priestly celibacy, an all-male priesthood, and traditional Catholic rituals are a bar to evangelisation. However, the discussion on both sides has been conducted with barely a reference to any of the characteristic features of Amazonian spirituality. The communities whose spiritual welfare is being so hotly fought over are often far more traditional in their approach to gender roles, religion and ritual action (be it Catholic or shamanic) than those who are attempting to advocate on their behalf.

The truth is that the indigenous societies of lowland South America remain attuned by their own cultures and traditions to the realities of spiritual warfare to a far greater extent than is currently the case in the West. These are not people who struggle to engage with the more formal and obscure elements of traditional rituals. Neither do they find it difficult to appreciate the significance of gendered divisions of labour in either ordinary or ritual tasks. These are all features of ritual action which their own traditions take for granted.

If the changes advocated by some participants in the Amazon synod were to be implemented, they would amount, ironically, to one more kind of spiritual colonisation, in this instance by a Western ideological agenda whose end, as we are seeing in the West, is ultimately secular, materialistic and spiritually destructive. It is also entirely alien to the spiritual traditions of the peoples of Amazonia.

If His Holiness and his brother bishops are able to hear the voices of the people of this region, above the noise being made by everyone else, they might just hear them crying out, as we should all be doing, for support in the spiritual battle. Both they and we are in urgent need of every weapon with which the Church has been armed by Christ against the powers of darkness. We need, all of us in equal measure, the clear, dazzling, undiluted truth of the Catholic faith.

Daniel J Dolley has a DPhil in social anthropology from the University of Oxford

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Undiluted Catholicism: what the Amazon really needs - Catholic Herald Online

The town at the mouth of a Norwegian fjord in Babettes Feast is not necessarily on anyones list of foodie destinations, unless youre a seabird jonesing for sardines.

But in the folksy, modestly entertaining new stage adaptation of Isak Dinesens short story, now getting its West Coast premiere at Lambs Players in Coronado, the place plays host to the meal of a lifetime. (Particularly for these 19th-century locals, who have spent their lifetimes dining on bread soup.)

That feast becomes the zenith of a story that explores the conflicts and commonalities between the sensual and the spiritual, as it follows the journey of a destitute French refugee whos embraced by a pair of pious Norwegian sisters.

The show takes its time, though, to work up momentum toward the big eat. That owes at least partly to the structure of the original by Dinesen the pen name for the Danish writer Karen Blixen, whos best-known for her memoir Out of Africa.

Babettes Feast which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film, as was Out of Africa leaps forward a little jarringly in big chunks of years. And the ensemble-based, story theater"-styled piece, for all its ultimately warmhearted charms, is also a little light on character exploration and heavy on narration that can feel dry and distancing at times.

But at Lambs, stirring vocal harmonies, Diana Elledges brooding and beautiful cello accompaniment and some winning performances among the 10-member cast help lift director Robert Smyths production.

The show also has an ideal Babette in Yolanda Marie Franklin, who brings to the piece a quiet reserve and sly humor that blossoms into radiance when her character, who has devoted herself to the art of cooking, begins creating her masterwork.

Most of Franklins cast mates take on multiple roles in the 90-minute, no-intermission work, which was conceived and developed by Abigail Killeen and adapted by Rose Courtney (the piece premiered in Maine before heading off-Broadway for a short stint in 2018).

At storys center at least until Babette finally arrives are sisters Philippa and Martine, played by Caitie Grady and Rachael VanWormer, respectively, in the characters younger incarnations. Their stern father (Jason Heil) founded the towns dominant religious order and has raised them to do good works.

While they attract some fervent suitors most notably the military man Loewenhielm (Ross Hellwig as the younger version, Rick Meads as the elder) and the wandering opera star Papin (Charles Evans Jr.) the sisters ultimately remain unmarried.

The ensemble of Babettes Feast at Lambs Players Theatre.

(Ken Jacques)

There are affecting scenes, though, between Grady and Evans (a real-life married pair) as they sing gorgeous duets during Papins vocal lessons. Those sequences are of a piece with Elledges inspired cello renderings of a score music-directed (and in some instances composed) by Deborah Gilmour Smyth.

Cut to decades later, when Philippa and Martine (now played by Gilmour Smyth and Kerry Meads), take Babette into their fold after she collapses on their doorstep.

And then leap ahead another dozen years, when the still-mysterious Babette who has become the sisters cook and something of a town treasure finds herself with the means to whip up an epic French repast.

The show finds its footing in those scenes, with their contrast between the amazed reactions of the now-returned Loewenhielm, who recognizes the meal as the work of a Parisian master, and the comically blas pose of the townspeople, whove made a pact not to seem affronted at what they fear will be a gluttonous ordeal.

Its a moment that weaves together gracefully the elements of the sacred and the earthly; even the lighting (by Nathan Peirson) seems to shed a divine glow on Mike Buckleys rustic set.

Loewenhielm says it best in a speech: Righteousness and bliss have kissed one another.

And if theres no real food in sight, the actors rapture still makes it feel pretty real.

When: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through Feb. 16.

Where: Lambs Players Theatre, 1142 Orange Ave., Coronado

Tickets: $24-$74 (discounts available)

Phone: (619) 437-6000

Online: lambsplayers.org

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Review: 'Babette's Feast' a warmhearted exploration of the spiritual and the sensual at Lamb's Players - The San Diego Union-Tribune

When Glen Rose High School graduate Lori Altebaumer finally had the time to start writing something she had wanted to do for years she took advantage of the opportunity.

Even as a child, I dreamed I could be a writer, she said. I loved the idea, but I didnt think it was possible.

She will be signing copies of A Firm Place to Stand from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. this Saturday (Jan. 25) at Grumps in Stephenville. She will also be signing copies at Storiebook Cafe in Glen Rose, starting at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 11.

Altebaumer was working with her husband, Joe, who is a financial advisor with Edward Jones in Stephenville, when he told her, I want you to do something that makes you happy.

That, she thought, would be writing but not just any old topic.

As a 51-year-old Christian woman, Altebaumer chose to write about spiritual themes, not frivolous ideas.

We treated it (the writing) like a ministry, Altebaumer said. I didnt have to make it income-producing. Right now, Im very happy. I have lots of ideas. You never know what God might move you into.

A Firm Place to Stand fit the bill.

Its a story about forgiveness, how things happen. Its never black and white, Altebaumer said, noting that the book falls in the Romantic Suspense genre. We have to be willing to give forgiveness and receive.

After picking the platform for the ministry, she explained, God will determine the reach. I just want the joy of expressing my thoughts through words in a way that touches someone else.

About a year and a half ago, Altebaumer also decided to become active in the already-established Call to Change Ministry, speaking to female prison inmates in Texas.

Altebaumer grew up in Glen Rose, and graduated from high school there in 1986. She earned a bachelor of science degree from Texas A&M in 1990.

She and her husband previously lived in Houston and Waco, but now live in Erath County between Lingleville and Desdemona. They have two children 21-year-old twins Jeff Altebaumer and Emily Dehn both of whom are married.

Altebaumer and her daughter co-wrote a book titled, Walking in the Reign, which also is available now online and in an e-book format. Both books were self-published. She said she is working on her second book, to be titled, A Far Way to Run, but isnt 100 percent certain when it will be finished.

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GRHS graduate using platform to write about spiritual themes - The Glen Rose Reporter

We just started a new year with new hopes, new aspirations and dreams for peace and prosperity. The realisation of our hopes and dreams in 2020, will depend on reinforcing our material achievements with spiritual perfections.

It is the Bah view that, prosperity, in its fullest sense, can only be achieved through a combination of spiritual and material well-being. It can be attained when material and spiritual civilisation advance together.

Our contemporary world, however, is often ruled by materialistic values and standards. The lack of attention to spiritual reformation, and the neglect of character development, has been the cause of numerous problems in our societies all over the world. This is not to say material means are not important. However, it is not in the nature of the humans to be a material being alone, just as it is not in the nature of humans to want to live in poverty, thinking only of the spiritual worlds.

We can compare the body to a vehicle which is being used by the soul for its journey through its earthly life. As such, it is important to cater for the needs of both the body (the vehicle) and the soul (the driver). However, it is important to allow our spiritual nature to take control, in the same way as the driver should be in control of a vehicle, and not vice versa.

In the Bah view, we need a new set of spiritual and moral standards that lead to the unification of humanity. It has to take into account that our well-being, peace and security will depend on our unity as humanity. As Bahullh, the founder of the Bah Faith says: The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.

Our spiritual dimension can be understood, in practical terms, as the source of qualities that help us rise above narrow self-interest. Through acquisition of spiritual virtues, not only the individual, but also societies can be transformed. The universal spiritual principles which lie at the heart of religion tolerance, compassion, love, justice, humility, sacrifice, trustworthiness, dedication to the well-being of others, and unity are the foundations of progressive civilisation.

The Bah Writings assert: we must strive to become more spiritual, more luminous, to follow the counsel of the Divine Teaching, to serve the cause of unity and true equality, to be merciful, to reflect the love of the Highest on all men, so that the light of the Spirit shall be apparent in all our deeds, to the end that all humanity shall be united, the stormy sea thereof calmed, and all rough waves disappear from off the surface of lifes ocean henceforth unruffled and peaceful.

[emailprotected]; or call 083-794-0819

Websites: http://www.bahai.org, http://www.bahai.org.za.

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Material achievements and spiritual perfections - Centurion Rekord

James C. Johnson, Guest columnist Published 7:00 a.m. CT Jan. 19, 2020

January represents the sad anniversary of the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. In 1984 President Ronald Reagan made a proclamation regarding the observation of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday which is to be observed on the closest Sunday to the original Jan. 22 date of Roe v Wade.

With that Sunday coming up, I want to remind readers that Abortion in America is still socially sanctioned, sovereignly offensive, and spiritually sinful.

James C. Johnson(Photo: Submitted)

Did you know there's one abortion every 27 seconds in America?That's 1.2 million babies annually. And because of Roe v Wade, all of this abortion is socially sanctioned.

The abortion advocates rationale is to explain that what is growing in a females womb is just a collection of cells, a biological sequence or just human tissue.

Yet, According toMayoClinic.org, just three weeks after conception the baby's brain, spinal cord, heart and other organs begin to form. In six weeks, arms and legs are growing longer, and fingers have begun to form. At 10 weeks, fingernails are growing and a baby's face has a profile.

In spite of these facts, it is socially sanctioned to insert a tool or take a pill and end a babys life.

Secondly, the Bible explains that abortion is sovereignly offensive. Abortion is an offense and an affront to the Supreme Ruler, the sovereign Creator God. Psalm 139:13-17 records for us that human beings are fearfully and wonderfullymade. Genesis1:25-27 explains that God makes man in His image.

Understanding that we are created in the image of God, to abort an innocent life is sin not just because its an offense to that specific human life, but also because its an offense to the image of God. There is a personhood and an eternal soul that exists in humans. The Sovereign God is offended by any society that socially sanctions aborting a human life.

Latest news: Florida Senate moves closer to approving new abortion restriction

Abortion ban bill: Rep. Mike Hill files fetal heartbeat abortion ban bill that removes all medical exceptions

Finally, abortion is spiritually sinful, every time. Some people take a situational ethics approach to abortion. They believe abortion isnt sinful if a baby in the womb has Down Syndrome. According to research reviewed by Dr. Brian Skotko, 92% of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies.

In John 9 there is an explanation of a man who was born blind. Jesus disciples asked Him, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. The point that Jesus made is we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, no matter our disabilities.

Some take a situational ethics approach to babies conceived by rape and believe in that situation, it is not sinful to abort a baby.

If you believe that, let me ask you, Is that which is conceived through rape a child or not?

Would you murder a child outside of a womb because they were conceived by rape? - of course not!Then why murder a child inside the womb because they were conceived by rape.

How should we treat a child who reminds us of a terrible experience? With murder or mercy?What if the rapist was caught?Would we allow the woman to murder him in order to have emotional relief?No! Then why allow her to murder her child instead.

The majority of the 1.2 million babies aborted annually in America were not aborted because of an extreme situation, but because of the inconvenience of parenthood. In any situation, putting a baby up for adoption is always a better choice than abortion.

Abortion is socially sanctioned, sovereignly offensive and spiritually sinful. Yet, the powerful gospel is the loving answer for the sinful problem of abortion. Scripture is uncompromisingly against the sin of abortion, but thankfully it is compassionate towards sinners. Anyone who turns from sin and to Christ can receive much-needed forgiveness.

James C. Johnsonis the pastor of NorthStone Baptist Churchin Pensacola. You offer him your feedback at northstonepastor@gmail.com.

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Abortion is socially sanctioned, sovereignly offensive and spiritually sinful | Guestview - Pensacola News Journal

Tributes have been paid to Pastor Donald Cameron Crawford with Pastor Nigel Elliott explaining that his authentic love for God made it very easy for him to love people.

Cameron, as he was known, died last week at South West Acute Hospital after a battle with cancer. He was Pastor at Elim Pentecostal Church in Enniskillen from 2006 to 2012, where his spiritual DNA will live on according to Pastor Elliott, who took over the role as Pastor at the church.

To me he was an amazing man. Not just an amazing man of faith but an amazing man all round. He was someone who you could depend upon and was consistent and committed. He was a brilliant friend as well as a brilliant Pastor, Pastor Elliott said.

Cameron was married to Betty and father to Paul and had four grandchildren, Jessica, Jacob, Jamie and Jenna. He was diagnosed with Cancer over two year ago but as Pastor Elliott explained Cameron used his time on earth after his diagnosis to make memories.

He loved spending time with his family, with his wife and his son and his four grandchildren and he was invested in their lives. When you spoke to him, he was always relaying stories about what the grandchildren were doing and how they were getting on, Pastor Elliott said, adding: He lived life to the full, even after he received his diagnosis. He never let that hinder him. His faith played an enormous part in his life. It grounded him and kept him going during his illness and despite the illness he remained very active in the church community. He wanted to make memories and he knew that his faith would carry him through his illness, and it did.

Cameron ministered in Scotland, Belfast and County Monaghan before moving to Fermanagh in 2006 and he was someone who was invested in cross community work and making a difference to peoples lives.

He was generous with his time and with his advice and in the small things that mean so much to people. He epitomised what being a Christian in, especially in how he lived. He was a hero of the faith. He loved being a father and a husband and a grandfather and he loved being a Pastor. And he did so much work in the town, he worked across all cultures and denominations and supporting people who are in need. he is a huge loss to the church and to his friends, but also to the town of Enniskillen and the county of Fermanagh, Pastor Elliott explained who also spoke about Camerons death being the start of a new chapter:

As a church we dont believe it was the end for Cameron, we believe it is the start of something and so did he. But he has left us a legacy that we will follow through. A lot of the things that we are doing in the church now has Camerons fingerprints on them and his spiritual DNA is in our church and in our community. We will miss him, but we will honour Cameron.

A service of celebration for the life of Pastor Crawford took place at Elim Pentecostal Church Enniskillen on Saturday with funeral arrangements carried out by Marcus Madill of S.R Elliott and Sons.

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Pastor's 'spiritual DNA' will live on - Impartial Reporter

By PAUL HARVEYUniversity of Colorado Colorado Springs

For blacks who grew up with the legacy of segregation, disfranchisement, lynching, and violence, retreat from social struggle was unthinkable. Martin Luther King Jr., however, learned from some important mentors how to integrate spiritual growth and social transformation.

As a historian, who has studied how figures in American history struggled with similar questions, I believe one major influence on King's thought was the black minister, theologian, and mystic Howard Thurman.

The influence of Howard Thurman

Born in 1899, Thurman was 30 years older than King, the same age, in fact, as King's father. Through his sermons and teaching at Howard University and Boston University, he intellectually and spiritually influenced an entire generation that became the leadership of the civil rights movement.

Among his most significant contributions was bringing the ideas of nonviolence to the movement. It was Thurman's trip to India in 1935, where he met Mahatma Gandhi, that was greatly influential in incorporating the principles of nonviolence in the black freedom struggle.

At the close of the meeting, which was long highlighted by Thurman as a central event of his life, Gandhi reportedly told Thurman that "it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world." King and others remembered and repeated that phrase during the early years of the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

Thurman and King were both steeped in the black Baptist tradition. Both thought long about how to apply their church experiences and theological training into challenging the white supremacist ideology of segregation. However, initially their encounters were brief.

Thurman had served as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965. King was a student there when Thurman first assumed his position in Boston and heard the renowned minister deliver some addresses. A few years later, King invited Thurman to speak at his first pulpit at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Their most serious personal encounter - the one that gave Thurman his opportunity to influence King personally, and help prepare him for struggles to come - came as a result of a tragedy.

A crucial meeting in the hospital

On Sept. 20, 1958, a mentally disturbed black woman named Izola Ware Curry came to a book signing in upper Manhattan. There, King was signing copies of his new book, "Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story." Curry moved to the front of the signing line, took out a sharp-edged letter opener and stabbed the 29-year-old minister, who had just vaulted to national prominence through his leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott.

King barely survived. Doctors later told King that, if he had sneezed, he easily could have died. Of course, King later received a fatal gunshot wound in April 1968. Curry lived her days in a mental institution, to the age of 97.

It was while recuperating in the hospital afterward that King received a visit from Thurman. While there, Thurman gave the same advice he gave to countless others over decades: that King should take the unexpected, if tragic, opportunity, to meditate on his life and its purposes and only then move forward.

Thurman urged King to extend his rest period by two weeks. It would, as he said, give King "time away from the immediate pressure of the movement" and to "rest his body and mind with healing detachment." Thurman worried that "the movement had become more than an organization; it had become an organism with a life of its own," which potentially could swallow up King.

King wrote to Thurman to say, "I am following your advice on the question."

King's spiritual connection with Thurman

King and Thurman were never personally close. But Thurman left a profound intellectual and spiritual influence on King. King, for example, reportedly carried his own well-thumbed copy of Thurman's best-known book, "Jesus and the Disinherited," in his pocket during the long and epic struggle of the Montgomery bus boycott.

In his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s, King quoted and paraphrased Thurman extensively. Drawing from Thurman's views, King understood Jesus as friend and ally of the dispossessed - to a group of Jewish followers in ancient Palestine, and to blacks under slavery and segregation. That was precisely why Jesus was so central to black religious history.

The mystic

Thurman was not an activist, as King was, nor one to take up specific social and political causes to transform a country. He was a private man and an intellectual. He saw spiritual cultivation as a necessary accompaniment to social activism.

As Walter Fluker, editor of the Howard Thurman Papers Project, has explained, the private mystic and the public activist found common ground in understanding that spirituality is necessarily linked to social transformation. Private spiritual cultivation could prepare the way for deeper public commitments for social change. King himself, according to one biographer, came to feel that the stabbing and enforced convalescence was "part of God's plan to prepare him for some larger work" in the struggle against southern segregation and American white supremacy.

In a larger sense, the discipline of nonviolence required a spiritual commitment and discipline that came, for many, through self-examination, meditation and prayer. This was the message Thurman transmitted to the larger civil rights movement. Thurman combined, in the words of historian Martin Marty, the "inner life, the life of passion, the life of fire, with the external life, the life of politics."

Spiritual retreat and activism

King's stabbing was a bizarre and tragic event, but in some sense it gave him the period of reflection and inner cultivation needed for the chaotic coming days of the civil rights struggle. The prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama, where in mid-1963 King penned his classic "Letter from Birmingham Jail," also accidentally but critically provided much the same spiritual retreat for reflections that helped transform America.

The relationship of Thurman's mysticism and King's activism provides a fascinating model for how spiritual and social transformation can work together in a person's life. And in society more generally.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 11, 2018. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/meet-the-theologian-who-helped-mlk-see-the-value-of-nonviolence-89938.

The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content.

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The theologian who helped MLK see the value of nonviolence - Sumter Item

During the last decade, innovation-oriented companies realized that innovation didnt just come from having really smart, high I.Q. people in leadership roles. Rather it came from leaders who have better soft skills. From M.B.A. schools to corporate trainings, development programs focused on improving the socioemotional skills of leaders, and assessments around emotional intelligence, E.Q., flourished. And so we have moved into an era of leaders that understand their emotions better, relate to their team members better, and understand the aspirations and needs of their customer better. They are more thoughtful in day-to-day human interactions, and are less emotionally reactive to challenging situations.

The next frontier of leadership development is spiritual intelligence, or S.Q. As we see mindfulness practices become prevalent in the workplace, we are starting to see many teachings from the spiritual traditions show up in the office. For many years, we heard sports analogies and military analogies in business e.g. blocking and tackling, ball is in their court, campaigns, battle scars etc. Now entering the lexicon are words like resilience, zen, unplugging, rising above, letting go, and of course, mindful!

Many of the traits we admire in advanced spiritual people, we now want to emulate in business. Having more presence and awareness, having a clear sense of personal mission, having calm through the storm, having focus without losing sight of the big picture, are all recognized as signs of a good leader and these traits are specifically cultivated through spiritual practices.

Leaders can build or improve S.Q. through multiple practices that improve self-awareness and connection. It starts with a shift in mindset realizing that we not just a bundle of muscles, bones, thoughts and emotions. It is obvious we have a body, and somewhat obvious that we have a mind, though we dont quite know where it resides. That mind also generates thoughts and emotions, and the emotions are what E.Q. practices target. The next layer of our existence is the deeper part of our being, that spiritual traditions refer to as the soul or the spirit or consciousness.

From a leadership point of view, we might call this our greater potential, our creativity, our source of inspiration, or our reservoir of innovation. Whatever we want to call the layer of us that is beyond body and mind, is irrelevant. What is relevant however is connecting to that layer of our being on a regular basis. Depending on what is comfortable, that might be as simple as indulging in creative pursuits such as art or dance, or through being in nature or participating in inspiring activities on a regular basis. Essentially any healthy regular practice, including religious practice, that helps you transcend emotions and mind can help improve spiritual intelligence.

Other practices to improve S.Q. can include regular journaling to unpack traumatic experiences, and take a pseudo-third-party analysis of a situation. This can often reveal deep insights about oneself. Even though you might have experienced a difficult challenge, as you write about it, you take a witnessing view, which can help you step out of mind-body-emotion constraints.

A more formalized approach might be many of the mindfulness practices in vogue. Many of these techniques originate from spiritual practices such as meditation, whose techniques are directly targeted to accessing that third layer of our being. Hence meditation is proven to improve creativity, focus, resilience, and health, since we are essentially bringing three layers of our being into our existence, i.e. body, mind, and spirit.

A yoga practice is also a powerful tool to improve ones spiritual connection. Its original intended purpose was to unite the three layers of our existence (yoga itself means union, in reference to union of body, mind, and spirit). The yoga system includes numerous practices, from meditation, breathing techniques, chanting techniques, physical postures, the study of spiritual books, serving others, worship, self-reflection, practicing compassion, and expressing gratitude, all designed to move us to increased S.Q. Many of these techniques have been divorced into individual practices in the Western world, e.g. only focusing on physical yoga postures at the gym, or only focusing on breath in a breathwork class, without the broader integrated practice that they are attached to. When yoga is done in a systematized and integrated way with its multitude of practices beyond the mat, it has a multiplicative effect on improving spiritual intelligence.

As we begin this new decade, evaluate your own spiritual outlook and practices. It is often said that we are all spiritual beings, having a human experience. Often we are so caught up in that human experience, we forget our greater nature. As we connect to that third layer of our existence, through whatever practices resonate with us, we will find our business and leadership life orient towards more fulfillment, inspiration and naturally more success.

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Why "Business Meets Spirituality" Is an Important Leadership Trend For 2020 - Thrive Global

The history of Christianity has always been filled with struggle. When the Middle Ages brought a rise in devoted, unique Christian teachings, the Church responded by declaring them heretics. And the heretics were hunted down. But one such Christian teaching managed to stay afloat, to resist the pressure and survive - for a while at least.

These were the Cathars, followers of Catharism, the Christian dualistic and Gnostic movement that swept through Europe and gained many followers. Today we are retracing their steps across the continent, exploring their impact on the history of the Middle Ages.

Who were these mysterious zealots who managed to take a stand against the Catholic Church? And what was their impact on the generations that came after?

The early history of Christianity is known for the suffering of its adherents, a prolonged struggle to find its own place among the polytheistic religions that surrounded it. Gradually, Christianity came on top in this struggle, coming to dominate the nations of Europe, becoming closely tied with its politics and expansionist movements of the rulers. And thus, Catholic Christianity dominated Western Europe.

To survive as a dominant religion, it needed wealth - a lot of it. And luckily, wealth was never an issue. The pious powerful rulers, desiring the support of the Catholic Church in their wars and conquests, showered it with lavish gifts of gold and tributes. And all was well for the rich.

But what happens when true Christianity comes forward? When true devotees step up and point fingers, when they threaten to take away the sheep of the vast Catholic flock and welcome them to a different sheepfold? When they directly threaten the wealth and income? They get annihilated.

The medieval period saw a lot of such movements, devoted Christians who wanted to spread the message of piety, of humility and love, of good deeds and poverty. But none of these aspects were well liked by the Catholic Church, especially the poverty part.

And thus, movement after movement, devotee after devotee, men and women, all who stood in the path of the Catholic Church were proclaimed as heretics, and violently hunted across Europe, and executed in the worst way possible - by being burnt at the stake. There were hundreds of such movements in the Middle Ages - the Waldensians who preached poverty and spirituality, or the Fraticelli who preached good deeds and poverty, and proclaimed the wealth of the Church as a scandal.

There were the Henricians, the Arians, the teachings of Gundolfo, the Arnoldists who criticized the wealth of the Church, Dulcinians, Beghards, and the Humiliati - just to name a few. All were persecuted. Yet there was one such movement that managed to resist - Catharism.

Catharism was dominant mostly in the region of southern France and northern Italy, but its roots go deeper and far from there. It is commonly agreed that it stems from the Paulician movement, an adoptionist sect that was created in the 7th century in Armenia. Needless to say, the Paulicians were proclaimed as heretics and were persecuted across Europe.

Map showing spread of Paulicianismacross Europe, the beginning of the Cathars. (Aldan-2 / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

As their teachings migrated, they were refined and acquired new forms and new names. From Armenia, this Gnostic teaching traveled to the Balkans, where the movement arose once more in the 10th century, among the Christians of Serbia and Bulgaria. Here they were known as Bogumili (Dear to God) or Babuni (superstitious ones).

They too were persecuted and mostly eradicated from the region. It was these movements that show great similarity with the Catharism and a distinct pathway of the teaching is shown across Europe.

Catharism first appeared in 11th century southern France, in the Languedoc region. This is the first time that the name Cathars was used, but we now know that this was not what they called themselves. Their self-identifying name was simple - good men, good women, or good Christians ( Bons Hommes, Bonnes Femmes, Bons Chretiens ).

As a teaching, Catharism was a dualistic, Gnostic revival movement and their belief was centered on the belief of two gods - one good and the other evil. At its very core, Catharism was an attempt to find answers to some key religious and philosophical questions that were centered around the existence of evil. Their basic teaching greatly differentiated from the regular Catholic Christian doctrines.

The Cathars believed that the God of the New Testament was the good one, and the God of the Old Testament was the evil one, better known as Satan. The good God created the spirit, while the evil one created the material world. Contrary to the regular Christian belief, the Cathars thought of the entire world as evil, and as such it could not have been created by a benevolent god.

Satan, whom the Cathars believed was the God of the Old Testament. (Dencey / Public Domain )

Here we can see the key aspect of the Cathar doctrines - the emphasizing of asceticism and the rejection of the physical world, as well as a direct response to the growingly scandalous and decadent lives of the Catholic clergymen in France. They also believed that the Evil God, or Satan, was the God of Judaism and they held that the Jewish law was wholly evil.

Their teaching is further characterized by a belief that human spirits were actually those of angels, who were seduced by Satan and forced to spend their lives in the material plane. In order to reach their angelic form or status, the Cathars preached full renouncing of the physical world of sin, and a devotion to the spiritual matters. The final release of their souls from the material world was done through the Cathar consolamentum ceremony.

Jesus Christ was highly venerated by the Cathars, but in a unique way. They believed that he was one of the angels and rejected his human form, considering it only an appearance. Cathars adhered to the core, good teachings of Christ, and thus called themselves the Good Christians.

The Resurrection of Jesus was denied, as well as the symbol of the Christian cross - another material thing which was simply a tool for torture and evil. Their adherents also completely avoided any form of killing and would not eat any animal products, or anything that was a form of sexual reproduction.

The Cathar Church was split into several dioceses, each one having its bishop. Those that followed and supported the Cathar doctrines, took the ceremony of consolamentum near the time of their death, similar to the last rites.

They believed that the Catholic Church was a false organization which prostituted itself for power and wealth gained by sinful means. And here we can see the first reason why the Catholic Church considered them as heretics.

With time, the Catharism movement gained serious momentum in the Languedoc region. Their teachings were accepted, spread, and in time four Cathar bishoprics were created - in the fortified city of Carcassonne, in Albi, Toulouse, and Agen. This became the core region of their movement, and these towns had a majority of Cathar adherents.

But one crucial thing made the Cathars different than other denominations that were persecuted before - they had military support. As their teaching spread through southern France, it too gained a touch of political focus.

Many prominent and powerful French nobles supported Catharism and its leaders, partly because they truly believed their religious teaching, but partly because they sought independence from the rule of the French crown. One of these noblemen was Raymond VI of Toulouse, at the time one of the most prominent lords of France. And thus, the Cathar movement had a military supporter.

Seeing their growing independence in Languedoc and a loose obedience to the crown, the new pope - Innocent III, resolved to make attempts at solving the Cathar problem. This he attempted in a somewhat peaceful manner, by sending delegations that would assess the situation. He also sent preachers, who attempted to convert the Cathars to Catholicism.

This portrays the story of a dispute between Saint Dominic and the Cathars in which the books of both were thrown on a fire and St. Dominic's books were miraculously preserved from the flames. This was believed to symbolize the wrongness of the Cathars' teachings. (Oursana / Public Domain )

They were all under the direction of one Pierre de Castelnau, a senior papal legate. Things escalated in 1208, when Pierre de Castelnau, who was greatly disliked in Languedoc, especially by Raymond of Toulouse, was murdered by one of the latters knights. At this point, the pope called for a crusade against the Cathars, with the aim to free the Languedoc region and vanquish the heresy.

He offered the Cathar lands to any lord who was willing to raise arms in the crusade and absolved of all sins any man who joined them. The crusade was greatly supported by the French crown, who sought to place Languedoc under their sphere of influence.

The Cathar Crusade (also known as the Albigensian Crusade) begun in 1209. A force of around 10,000 crusaders was assembled and soon began their march. The first town in their path was Beziers, which was protected by a prominent noble and a Cathar follower - Raymond Roger Trencavel.

But seeing his situation and being largely unprepared to defend Beziers effectively, Trencavel fled to the mighty fortress of Carcassonne, in order to prepare a suitable defense. Sadly, the city of Beziers was left to the mercy of the crusaders, and mercy was not quite a common term in the crusader vocabulary.

Under the command of the papal legate, a Cistercian abbot by the name of Arnaud Amalric, the crusaders besieged the city and on the following day managed to enter within the city walls. What followed was a shocking massacre of its Cathar inhabitants. The entire city was burnt down and all of its residents murdered.

Interestingly, the city was not only inhabited by Cathars but by Catholics too. Even so, they were all put to the sword together. When the soldiers attempted to distinguish Cathar from Catholic, Amalric reportedly said: Kill them all! God will distinguish them. In a letter to the pope, Arnaud Amalric coolly wrote that around 20,000 people were massacred that day in Beziers.

Pope Innocent IIIexcommunicating the Albigensians (left), massacre of the Albigensians by the crusaders (right). (Rolling Bone / Public Domain )

Even though it was a powerful stronghold, Carcassonne fell seven days after Beziers, after a short siege. Roger Raymond Trencavel was captured while attempting negotiations and died a few months afterwards. No massacres were conducted this time, and the Cathars and the residents of Carcassonne were exiled.

Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. In this group, women appear to be nearly as numerous as men. (Poeticbent/ Public Domain )

After this crucial defeat, most other Cathar towns surrendered without further bloodshed. They would fall to the crusaders without resistance during the autumn. Those that didnt surrender were besieged one by one during the winter of 1209.

Lastours fell after a prolonged siege, as did Bram after it. In June of 1210 the city of Minerve was besieged and fell in the following month. Its Cathar residents were given a chance to convert to Catholicism, but none would accept.

In the end 140 Cathars, most of them priests, were burned at the stake. Many of them voluntarily went to their deaths. Several smaller Cathar strongholds fell soon after and in a similar way, with more mass burnings at the stake taking place.

Cathars being burnt at the stake in anauto-da-f, anachronistically presided over by Saint Dominic. (Soerfm / Public Domain )

In 1213, the Cathars, now desperate for assistance, sought the help of Peter II, King of Aragon, and Count of Barcelona. As Peters sister was the wife of the leading Cathar noble Raymond VI of Toulouse, he agreed to support the Cathars. But at the same time, he was also a staunch Catholic and on good terms with the pope.

This caused in a major lull in the crusade, as the pope believed that Peter II could solve the heresy problem in a diplomatic way. But soon after, things went sour and the Cathar coalition of Peter and Raymond caused the pope to renew the crusade.

This led to the Battle of Muret in September 1213, in which the crusaders, although outnumbered, crushed the forces of the Cathars and killed Peter II of Aragon. Raymond fled to England, and by 1215, the Cathar movement was largely suppressed.

Course of the Battle of Muret, which led to the defeat of the Cathars. (Macesito / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Raymond VI of Toulouse returned in 1216, after three years of exile, and quickly re-gathered the Cathar forces from Languedoc. They waged a series of sieges and battles and managed to retake Toulouse and a few other strongholds by 1218.

As the crusade subsided and renewed in waves, the Cathars managed to regain some territories, and keep Toulouse through several sieges up to 1221. By 1224 Carcassonne was reclaimed as well.

A new Cathar Crusade was started by the Catholic Church in 1226, this time led by Louis VIII, King of France. By 1229, all Cathar towns were captured and the main supporter of the Cathars, Raymond VII of Toulouse, agreed to abandon his cause in order to regain favor with the king and reclaim his lands.

With this, and the following inquisitions of the Catholic Church, Catharism was almost gone. The last Cathar fortress, Montsegur, fell in 1244, and over 200 Cathar priests were burned at a massive pyre on the spot. After this, Catharism was largely extinguished and those few who remained practiced it in secrecy.

The sad story of the Cathars reminds us that the opposition to the powerful institutions of the world is a noble, but in the end, fruitless cause. The Cathars, in their devotion to the true, spiritual world, unwillingly stirred the hornets nest and became a thorn in the side of the rich. And such thorns, as we all know, are plucked out with vicious repercussions.

Top image: Representation of the Albigensian Crusades against the Cathars. Source: Yelkrokoyade / Public Domain .

By Aleksa Vukovi

Arnold, J. 2001. Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc . University of Pennsylvania Press.

Barber, M. 2014. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages . Routledge.

Costen, M. 1997. The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade . Manchester University Press.

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The Fall of Spirituality: The Blood-Soaked History of the Cathars - Ancient Origins

LOS ANGELES >> For Linna Spransy, who grew up in a Christian commune in Oregon with a rock musician father, religion and art have always been intertwined.

"Religious lifestyle, and expression and art were all the same thing," Spransy told Religion News Service.

Spransy is one of the directors of Bridge Projects, a new Southern California gallery that seeks to link art with spiritual and religious traditions.

The gallery's inaugural exhibition, "10 Columns" by artist Phillip K. Smith III, features glowing mirrored panels that convert the otherwise dark room into a simulated sunrise and sunset. The panels shift colors, from warm yellow and orange tones to bright blue and red hues.

The exhibit opened in October in Bridge Project's 7,000-square-foot gallery, which sits between a Mobil gas station and a Public Storage facility on Santa Monica Boulevard. Visitors to the gallery have described their experiences in the space on Instagram, calling the installation "enthralling" and saying it made them feel reflective and meditative.

Is one witnessing a sunrise or a sunset, a cultural awakening or a catastrophic meltdown? wrote Julia Ingalls in The Architect's Newspaper.

Bridge Projects directors Spransy and Cara Megan Lewis, who are both artists, said they wanted to create a space where people can talk about spiritual and religious perspectives.

The two have known each other for about a decade and both have roots in Kansas, where Lewis had a gallery space.

Lewis, whose background is in commercial galleries, said she's seen how artists have felt the need to "suppress their faith traditions or religious convictions in the context of the contemporary art world."

"Just a fear of rejection and misunderstanding," she said.

Lewis, who grew up in the Methodist church, said she was raised with a faith-driven and social justice mindset that has influenced her own art. She was part of an interactive artwork, dubbed "34,000 Pillows," that drew attention to a congressional rule that required the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to maintain 34,000 beds in its facilities.

Bridge Projects was funded by Roberta Ahmanson, who along with her husband, Howard Ahmanson, was in 2005 named as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America." Spransy said Roberta Ahmanson began collecting her work when Spransy was still in Kansas City.

The Ahmansons have a track record of funding cultural endeavors, spanning back to the late Howard Ahmanson Sr., whose family name is on the Ahmanson Theatre in LA.

Through the private philanthropy Fieldstead and Co., Ahmanson and her husband have sponsored a number of art exhibitions in the United States and Great Britain along with journalism about the arts and religion. Fieldstead and Co. also funded support of California's Proposition 8, a same-sex marriage ban that passed but that was later ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

Roberta Ahmanson, a former newspaper reporter and editor who covered religion in Southern California, said that in order to understand human beings, you need to understand their beliefs.

"You need to be able to talk about it in the art world because it's there," Ahmanson added. "It was just a subject you couldnt talk about."

With the "10 Columns" exhibition, which continues through Feb. 16, Bridge Projects has hosted programming that relates to "the subject matter of light from diverse sources."

In November, anthropologist Ronald Faulseit lectured about the role natural light played in influencing ancient temples, ritual and religion in Mesoamerica. Earlier this month, artist Lita Albuquerque spoke about her work and the intersections of light, landscape and scientific cosmologies.

Spransy is pleased to see people being open to this kind of programming.

"I was really encouraged and interested in how many people responded well when we talked about inviting archaeologists to come talk about Mesoamerican temple architecture and the fact that light orientation was so important to a lot of ancient cultures," she said.

Spransy said that in her professional life, she's been told that religion and art need to be "strained out from one another."

She hopes the new gallery proves otherwise.

"I still believe it doesnt have to be that way, and it shouldnt," she said.

(Editor's note: Fieldstead and Co. has supported past RNS arts coverage through a grant to the Religion News Foundation.)

Excerpt from:

In this art gallery, conversations about religion and spirituality are welcome - The Oakland Press

Posted January 15, 2020

Event Name

A Spirituality of Aging: Deepening our Wisdom Years

Event Location

Cranaleith Spiritual Center 13475 Proctor Road, Philadelphia, PA 19116

Start Date and Time:

January 21; February 4, 18; March 10, 24; April 21, 2020 @ 10:00 am

End Date and Time

January 21; February 4, 18; March 10, 24; April 21, 2020 @ 1:30 pm

Event Description

As we grow older, we become more conscious of the new realities that life holds for us. We invite you to come join in the sharing of fellowship with others who are seeking insight into the process of aging.In a setting of prayer, peace and beauty we will share what is stirring in us, listen to valuable reflections and enter into discussion and prayer that will touch our hearts and spirits.

January 21 Aging and Mysticism: Hildegard of Bingen February 4 Gods Presence in the Midst of Suffering February 18 Aging and Mysticism: Teresa of Avila

Presenters: Mary Anne Nolan, RSM and Marie Michele Donnelly, RSM

Go to info@cranaleith.org to see additional topics and to register.

Cost: $30/session (includes lunch) Attend one or all sessions.

Ticket URL (optional)

https://cranaleith.org/event/deepening-our-wisdom-years-a-spirituality-of-aging-2020-01-21/2020-01-21/

Please join in the church's vital mission of communications by offering a gift in whatever amount that you can -- a single gift of $40, $50, $100, or more, or a monthly donation. Your gift will strengthen the fabric of our entire Catholic community.

Make your donation by check:CatholicPhilly.com222 N. 17th StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19103

Or by credit card here:

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A Spirituality of Aging: Deepening our Wisdom Years - CatholicPhilly.com

Kids and young people in the Western world today are increasingly digital, surrounded by both media gadgets and media stories that play a big part in their lives.[1]

The influence of media on religious ideas and values

The Swedish sociologist Mia Lvheim notes that the media is a more frequent arena than family and church for contacts with religious ideas and values.[2]

Perhaps the cinema outdoes the church in providing todays youth with a number of its religious ideas; after all, both are places of spiritual reflection which present values and stories with an underlying message.[3]

These stories are making an impact on the younger generation and on their worldview formation.

Disney and its global influence

Walter Elias Disney (19011966) was a moviemaker who wished both to deliver a message and make good entertainment.[4] His work creating the Disney universe has gone global, and now it is a fantasy world that both entertains and educates children in [US] and around the world.[5]

The term Disney universe reflects Disney products universality and the concept of a fantasy universe that has a great effect on the young generations worldview today.[6]

One of Disneys own screenwriters, Linda Woolverton, has said: When you take on a Disney animated feature, you know youre going to be affecting entire generations of human minds.[7]

Thus, The Walt Disney Company is very much aware of its influence via messages often hidden under a cover of fantasy and magic.

While Disney plays a major role in the lives of the younger generation, this is not confined to the Western world where the Disney universe was created. The movies and products featuring Disney characters can be found almost everywhere.

Insights for the church

Since Disney through its trademark is globally present, Christians worldwide can utilize the stories from the Disney universe in communication with kids and youth about religion and basic values.

Disney is globally influential, and its stories often mirror values found in or imported from Western society such as individualism.

By familiarizing ourselves with the values that are presented in the Disney universe, the global church can also obtain increased insights into the frame of reference that kids in general are exposed to through other media stories.

Faced with a society that is more and more media engaged, the global church has the challenge of meeting the young ones where they are, in their media-saturated world. To find out what they can be influenced by, positively and negatively, we can study the worldviews represented in their media world.

My analysis of the relatively recent movie Moana shows traces in it of two important aspects of contemporary worldviews: individualism and spirituality. I have also compared my findings with an analysis of older Disney movies by Margunn S. Dahle.[8]

Individualism

Looking at Moana and some classic Disney movies, I found several elements of individualism that strongly reflect Western postmodern society.

The movie about the heroine Moana is very much focused on her need to belong somewhere, as she looks for her place and role in life. This is easy to find in other Disney classics too, such as Hercules, Mulan, and The Lion King:

- Positively, the Disney heroes take on much responsibility and are brave in their journey to find meaning in their lives.

- However, their search for identity is often in conflict with family and community values in the Disney movies.

For the heroine Moana, her peoples traditions are very important. So, living on the island of Motonui, Moana tries to do what is expected of her, like the Chinese heroine Mulan.

However, they both end up going against their familys wishes and expectations when they run away from home and follow their hearts instead.

This element of individualism is found in several Disney movies, in which the story has a central motif of breaking with traditional expectations, and following your own heart instead of accepting decisions made by your parents or larger community.

Spirituality

Several Disney classics, as well as Moana, have inherent elements of spirituality. Moana presents reincarnation as a spiritual reality and presents Moanas forefathers as being present on earth in the nature surrounding her.

Pantheism (spirits in nature) and an opening for folk religiosity are present in many post-1989 Disney classics. For example, The Lion King (1994) presents the African notion of the living dead, while the heroine in Pocahontas (1995) communicates with spirits in accordance with Native American religion.

Positively, this teaches kids and youth about different worldviews and folk religiosity; but to learn from it, they must recognize that these messages go against a Christian worldview.

Many Disney movies mix Judaeo-Christian teaching with other religious elements and spirituality and then put some magic on top as the final solution for making your dreams come true.

In Moana, the magic happens through a pantheistic worldview. The ocean calls Moana, and her forefathers who have been reincarnated (especially her grandmother) to help her to achieve her dream.

The individualism is also found in the focus on Moanas inner spiritualitythe calling she feels from the voice in her heart.

How do we engage?

By examining worldviews that are typical of the Disney universe and also reflect the world we live in, we get to understand the messages our kids and youth are influenced by in their daily lives.

In kids and youth ministry, we can look for ways to confront the me-first spirit of the age and confirm the good values that coincide with Christian faith.[9]

he Disney universe influences the young generation in both positive and negative ways. To present them with a balanced picture, we need to underscore both the points of concordance and discordance between the Christian faith and the Disney universe.

Elements of concordance and discordance

Looking for positive aspects of the Disney universe that may coincide with Christian theology, we can see that within the individualism presented, there are values such as wanting to reach your own goals and being brave and strong.

Additionally, Disney underscores the importance of accepting responsibility and the quest for meaning in life.

Being brave, strong, and taking on responsibility are all Christian values we can embrace in the Disney universe. The existential questions as to where we belong and the meaning of life can also be addressed both in Christian faith and in Disney movies.

These points of contact give material to the youth worker or parent who can communicate with the younger generation about finding their identities and reaching their goals.

Typical elements of discordance between the Christian faith and the Disney universe can also be found in individualism as the heroes/heroines often oppose their parents and follow their own will.

Their pursuit of their meaning in life causes them to put themselves and their ambitions first. This presents opportunities to discuss with youth how a Christian should think about his/her own will and ambitions compared to the interests of others.

In addition, we find pantheism and reincarnation in the Disney universe, elements that contradict Christian faith. The spirituality that focuses on forefathers and spirits in nature and inside of you can be addressed in the dialogue with the young generation to create awareness, as well as reflection on how these elements contradict the biblical message.

Double listening

In relating to the younger generation, we want to offer them fellowship, help them grow in their faith and encourage them to spread the gospel to nonbelievers.[10]

If we listen to and learn from the media world surrounding them, we can convey the message of the gospel through the similarities and differences between Christian faith and their media world.

This approach involves the principle of double listeninglistening to both the Word of God and the world around us in search of concordance and discordance between the two messages.[11]

It means trying to understand and obey Gods word, and at the same time to understand the world in which we live, in order to see how the gospel can relate to and speak to the society.

Church leaders, parents, and youth workers, in fact all Christians, should be encouraged to practice this principle. It helps us scrutinize the messages we receive and encourages the young generation to maintain awareness in their digital life.

We should watch movies with the kids and youth, get to know what their media world contains, and talk about it open-mindedly.

If we as a global church can point to Jesus through the different messages the young generation receive, the process will show us and them the unselfish, loving nature of our Lord who in bravery sacrificed the pursuit of his own happiness to make the dream of mankind come trueto live happily ever after.

Tonje Belibi serves as Assistant Professor at Fjellhaug International University College in Norway, from where she received her MA in Theology and Missions. Her Masters Thesis was entitled, Relevant Faith Education for Tweens in a Media Age: The Disney Movie Moana as a case study.

This article originally appeared in the January 2020 issue of theLausanne Global Analysisand is published here with permission. Learn more about this flagship publication from the Lausanne Movement atwww.lausanne.org/lga.

Endnotes

1. Margunn Serigstad Dahle, Worldview Formation and the Disney Universe: A Case Study on Media Engagement in Youth Ministry, Journal of Youth and Theology 1 (16), 2017: 62.

2. Mia Lvheim, Religious Socialization in a Media Age, Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 2 (25), 2012: 151.

3. Nick Pollard, Philosophical Investigation, Damaris Skole Vgs, 2018, https://damaris-skole-vgs.no/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Philosophical-investigation-Nick-Pollard.pdf.

4. Mark I. Pinsky, The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 2. Gunnar Strm, Walt Disney, Store norske leksikon, 2017, http://snl.no/Walt_Disney.

5. Pinsky, The Gospel According to Disney, 3.

6. Janet Wasko, Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy (Cambridge, UK: Malden, MA: Polity, 2013), 3.

7. Quoted in Annalee R. Ward, Mouse Morality: The Rhetoric of Disney Animated Film (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002), 113.

8. Dahle, Worldview Formation and the Disney Universe, 6080.

9. D. Kinnaman, Whats next for Youth Ministry?, in The State of Youth Ministry (The Barna Group, 2016) 85-87.

10. Editors Note: See article by Ben Pierce, entitled, Connecting with the New Global Youth Culture, in March 2019 issue of Lausanne Global Analysis https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2019-03/connecting-with-the-new-global-youth-culture.

11. See John Stott, The Contemporary Christian: An Urgent Plea for Double Listening (Leicester: IVP, 1992).

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Spirituality and values in the Disney universe - Evangelical Focus

JOYOUS SOUND The Steubenville Community Youth Choir performs upbeat Christian music during a program of entertainment and reflection on the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Saturday at the Sycamore Youth Center.(Photo by Warren Scott)

STEUBENVILLE Youth have been playing a big part in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Associations weekend-long observance of Martin Luther King Day, as organizers strive to convey the civil rights leaders principles to them while also recruiting them to pass his message on to others.

On Saturday at the Sycamore Youth Center, paid tribute to King through song and dance, while Steve Forte, director of the Fishers Council a local civic group reflected on the Christian principles that guided the slain civil rights leader.

Forte said King, a Baptist minister, was driven by the teachings of Jesus Christ when he adopted and promoted a nonviolent stance while lobbying for equal rights for all races.

Forte addressed an audience of all ages during a break in a morning of entertainment at the Sycamore Youth Center Saturday.

He noted prior to the civil rights movement, whites and blacks could not use the same water fountains, restrooms and restaurants, a fact that can be difficult for younger generations to understand today.

Forte said King set out to change things but in deciding how to do that, asked himself what Jesus would do.

Blacks and others in marches promoting equality often encountered violence but King encouraged them not to fight back, following the example of Christ, who forgave the men who killed him while they were killing him.

Forte said King has been called a light in those dark times but really he was a reflection of Christ, who taught us to return love for hate.

He shared stories of victims of violence who were able to find peace and forgiveness toward their attackers through Christianity.

Forte noted following Amber Guygers sentencing for the shooting death of Botham Jean, a man she mistakenly believed had broken into her apartment, the victims brother, Brandt, hugged and forgave her.

Can you be more powerful than the person youre in conflict with, the system in which you find conflict? The answer is yes, through Jesus Christ, he said.

How wonderful would it be to be in a confrontation with someone and through that confrontation, that person finds Christ? Forte said.

Organized by Cynthia Lytle and the Rev. Bobbyjon Bauman, entertainment was provided by many youth, including the AKC Dance Team, CBE 180, Minister of Truth, Elisha Fletcher, the Ambassador Mime Team and Steubenville Community Youth Choir.

Theres so much talent and so much gifting from the young people in this community, and when they a platform to display that, its always a treat, said Lytle.

Prior to the program, she played an excerpt from a King speech in which he said everyone has an opportunity to become great by serving others.

Lytle said community service is a good way to honor King.

We believe that instead of looking at it as day off, that Dr. King would see it as a day on, she said.

Following the program, many youth and adults walked over to the Steubenville Urban Missions Unity Kitchen to serve lunch to visitors there.

As excited as I was to see them perform, I was even more excited to see them serve, Lytle said.

Forte also met Saturday afternoon with young black men enrolled in the Fisher Councils 2020 Male Initiative, a mentoring program aimed at helping them to be productive and active community members.

The weekend-long observance will continue with an ecumenical service at 6 p.m. today at Finley United Methodist Church on Lincoln Avenue, a free continental breakfast with comments from the Rev. Marshall D. Madeconia and others; and a memorial march at 10 a.m. Monday from the Martin Luther King Recreation Center on Market Street to Steubenville High School, where winners of the MLK Associations essay contest will be recognized.

A lunch will immediately follow.

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s spiritual influence remembered in Steubenville | News, Sports, Jobs - The Steubenville Herald-Star

Last year, Forbes magazine reported, The average adult consumes five times more information every day than their counterpart 50 years ago. It went on to suggest that Americans can spend 12 hours a day looking at screens!

This is no diatribe against technology after all, these thoughts were penned for a Catholic website. But there is something to be said for books. Reading a print book is contemplative, restful, and inspiring in ways that watching television or scrolling social media are not. So why not start 2020 with a new commitment to spiritual reading? Here are five reasons to consider it:

Jesus himself invites us to know and love him through the intimate conversation we call prayer. Nevertheless, in a certain respect, prayer is an input output game. What goes in, comes out. Spiritual reading helps train our minds to think of higher things and allows us to enter more easily into conversation with God. When we engage in reading about the life of Jesus or the mysteries of our faith, it becomes easier to mull them over with God in prayer.

How can I tell someone about my love for Christ without words? Spiritual reading helps shape and color our own experiences of the Lord. By giving words to the faith or considering the experiences of the saints, sharing our own love for the faith will come more readily, with a more natural feel.

Every website, news channel or radio station has a set of guiding principles that inform the stories they present and the way those stories are shared. Only the Gospel is free from ideology. Only spiritual reading, the Scriptures and the lives of holy Christian men and women, can refresh us and lift us out of the mire which so often drags us down.

We hear excerpts from the Bible each Sunday in Mass. However, deciding to regularly read the Scriptures allows a Christian to hear God speaking directly to ones own heart in a particularly intimate way. The Gospels and the Letters of the New Testament hold pride of place as they offer the heights of the story of our salvation and present in simple terms stories of consolation and joy.

We may be tempted to pick up a biography or treatise and force ourselves to enjoy it. Such and such a saint is incredible, weve heard. But we may very well not like every work we come across; Reading a breadth of spiritual works allows us to become more fully ourselves. We must not be afraid to soften the edges of our vices or expand the horizon of our own views. In so doing our faith will become more completely our own.

Looking for some suggestions? Check out this list from Aleteia. Take an hour and peruse the shelves of a local Catholic bookshop. Order a few things online or pick up a couple of books from your local library. You wont regret it!

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5 Reasons to jumpstart your spiritual reading in 2020 - Aleteia EN

The program for this weeks conversation on forgiveness includes relevant writings such as, To nurse a grievance or hatred against another soul is spiritually poisonous to the soul which nurses it, but to strive to see another person as a child of God and, however heinous his deeds, to attempt to overlook his sins for the sake of God, removes bitterness from the soul and both ennobles and strengthens it.

The brochure for the Meaningful Conversations Chapel Hill meeting on Jan. 15, titled Finding Justice in Forgiveness.

The brochure also offers conversation guidelines for each meeting that align with Bah teachings, such as valuing everyones contribution, expressing views but keeping an open heart and mind and maintaining a humble posture of learning.

When I heard about the activity, I wanted to be a part of it and help out in any way I can, so I joined the team and I really enjoy all the conversations, said Kathy Krug, a frequent participant who found the group because she is a Bah.

Krug said that many people who come to the gatherings feel inspired by the writings, and many others come because they feel the topic is something vital to whats going on in the world. The meetings give participants the chance to meet and get to know others who feel the same.

We had no idea what the response would be, but at the end of every gathering I feel that theres some kind of power in talking about something that is unifying and uplifting, when youre all diverse people coming together at one moment in time, Krug said. I think thats something we should be encountering more often.

Solomon Gibson III, another community participant, agreed that the topics are relevant and generate valuable discussions.

The group itself seems to be in the zeitgeist these days, probably due to the political nature of our society, Gibson said. We often talk about cooperation, and how to best weather whats going on and continue to improve humanity and get through these turbulent times.

He said he merits the group for making everyone feel very comfortable sharing and expressing their ideas.

I give them credit they have attracted the most diverse group of individuals that I have seen in any such meetings Ive been to," Gibson said. "That leads to a tendency to discuss many different understandings of the subject matter, usually emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual."

Krug said she is especially looking forward to the diverse viewpoints that will be brought up at this weeks gathering, as the conversation topic is one thats important to her.

Thinking about forgiveness and justice together," she said, "Ive been reflecting and meditating on that since I was 19 and Im still learning, so Im really looking forward to the insights people bring to that as I think its something were always faced with as humans.

arts@dailytarheel.com

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Meaningful Conversations Chapel Hill looks for the spiritual basis of forgiveness - The Daily Tar Heel

Since the 2000s, the New Orleans artist Big Freedia been at the forefront of bringing the energetic hip-hop form known as bounce into the mainstream.Many got their first taste of Freedia when she was featured on Beyonces Formation, shouting, I did not come to play with you hoes, I came to slay, bitch!

If youve never seen the Queen Diva live, hold onto something.

Her show is a spiritual experience one that consists of self-love, booty-shaking and the kind of fellowship often reserved for religious functions. It might seem strange to see spiritual experience and booty-shaking in the same sentence, but we assure that many have shared the same sentiment upon leaving her concerts.

$22, Sunday, Jan. 19, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Marys St., papertigersatx.com.

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Big Freedia Will Bring Bounce Tunes, Spiritual Experience When She Takes the Stage at Paper Tiger - San Antonio Current

Liverpool Football Club are an incredible organisation when it comes to respecting and honouring faith and religion at every level.

At Anfield for example there is a multi-faith prayer room, accessible for fans via the Main Stand from up to five hours before kick-off at every match.

At Melwood for the players there is also a prayer and faith room which the ECHO understands is used by the likes of Muslim superstars Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane while Gini Wijnaldum also frequents the room as a very spiritual player for reading and reflection.

Other players use it too but a little more privately and when Liverpool complete their training ground move from Melwood to the new complex in Kirkby, scheduled for completion this summer, the room will be replicated for all staff members to continue their practices.

Before matches, Liverpool don't need to arrive at grounds early for players such as Salah and Mane to pray or carry out any religious activity they so wish. The club instead factor this in to the countdown to kick-off in terms of the rubs and stretches players receive among other things they need to do in that time before lining-up alongside their team-mates.

And with that, neither Salah or Mane has ever requested an early arrival time at a match either but both instead factor everything into their important match preparations.

Manager Jurgen Klopp is very open about his strong Christian faith. Alisson recently played a role in the baptism of Liverpool and Brazil team-mate Roberto Firmino - of which the frontman shared a video on Instagram with both players seemingly very emotional following the religious event. Belgian striker Divock Origi has too been open about his faith and how that has helped him through injuries.

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This in itself highlights just what can happen when talented people from any belief and all walks of life come together to work alongside and understand each other in perfect assimilation.

And that is exactly what World Religion Day, held on the third Sunday in January every year, aims to promote - that inter-faith understanding and harmony is incredibly important and that by emphasising the common denominators underlying all religions can help people see that working together can bring great success.

It's hard to think of another set-up that does this quite so incredibly as Liverpool with players, managers and staff following a number of different religions and factions of religions but understanding each other and helping each other along so much so that they are the reigning European and world champions of football.

Klopp manages Protestants, Catholics and other Christian denominations as well as Muslims and has spoken on numerous occasions about the harmony between the players in the dressing room being one of the most important factors for success at Liverpool.

He said recently: "It only works because of the environment, it only works because of the atmosphere the boys create by themselves in the group."

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Liverpool players spiritual preparations and how club respectfully honours faith behind the scenes - Liverpool Echo

Featured photo by Marty Abrin

The members of the Michigan Board of Cantors want you to know that they are more than a collection of pretty voices. Someone who simply leads and interprets prayers is not necessarily a cantor.The equivalent would be calling anyone who presents an interpretation on a Jewish text a rabbi, he said.

Singing is just a little bit of what we do, he said. Even the English translation of the Hebrew word hazzan to cantor, a Latin word taken from the Christian church, doesnt do justice to the role. The Hebrew word hazzan implies visionary and includes not only leading Jewish prayer but also Jewish education and pastoral care, said Gross of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills. He prefers the title hazzan to cantor.

Neil Michaels of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield and current president of the Michigan Board of Cantors, says cantors have traditionally been responsible for leading prayer, chanting Torah, working with choirs, training bnaimitzvah students andteaching Hebrew in religious schools. Now, he said, their role has expanded to include giving eulogies and sermons, counseling and even preparing an individual for conversion.

The hazzan is known as the shaliach tzibor, the emissary of the congregation; the word has visionary overtones. In ages past, the hazzan led the community in public prayer while the rabbis job was mainly to teach, counsel and answer questions of law, said Hazzan Steve Klaper, a founder of Song & Spirit Institute for Peace in Royal Oak. New Jewish communities would often hire a hazzan before hiring a rabbi, and cantors were recognized by the civil authorities as clergy with authority to solemnize marriages.

Hazzanim are more than singers or performers, he said. The shul is not a theatrical stage and davening is not a concert. We teach and lead worship through an alternate carrier wave, creating an effect at once emotional, intellectual and spiritual. We change the vibration of the room and the state of mind of the congregants in ways that most rabbis cannot. We are the spiritual caretakers of the congregation.

The training for hazzanim is similar to that of rabbis, Gross said. In the major American cantorial schools at the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) and Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), cantorial study takes five years, including one in Israel. At the end of the program, the hazzanim are ordained or invested and are considered to be clergy.

Cantors in this community are truly respected on a level similar to rabbis. Thats not true in every community, he added.

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Local Cantors are 'The Spiritual Caretakers of the Congregation' - The Jewish News

Unlike the famous ancient cities of Tikal and El Mirador in the northeast, this capital of the Kaqchikel Maya was brought down not by the ravages of deforestation and drought but by the consequences of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. Fifty years after Iximches founding, despite an early alliance with the conquistadors, the city was burned to the ground. Standing in ruins for four hundred years, Iximche once again became a center of Maya activity in the 1980s, first as a meeting place for a declaration to defend Indigenous rights during the Guatemalan Civil War, then in a ritual to re-establish the site as a sacred place for Indigenous ceremonies. While the site is open to visitors, many of those who come to Iximche are Indigenous people, including Maya priests (or daykeepers), on religious pilgrimages to this ancestral place.

INSIDER TIPTo Maya people, Iximche is a sacred site, not a tourist attraction, even when the tourist is a major world leader. After President George W. Bush visited in 2007, spiritual leaders purified the site of the bad spirits he had attracted through his administrations persecution of undocumented Guatemalan migrants in the U.S.

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The 12 Best Mayan Sites to See in Guatemala - Fodor's Travel