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Category Archives: Spirituality

Spirituality is attainable in all walks of life

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Time was, the theory of everything spiritual had a Shakespearean flair, such as Hamlets advice on how to lead a life of virtue: Get thee to a nunnery.

Thats not valid any more (and probably was not then), according to two speakers scheduled for the 30th annual conference of the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse May 1 and 2, with a theme of Living Your Life as Spiritual Practice.

One strain used to say leave everyday life to enter the seminary or convent. Thats simply not true, said the Rev. Thomas Ryan, a Paulist priest who will be keynote speaker at the conference.

At one time in the Catholic tradition, in fact, laypeople were discouraged from reading the Bible, with the hierarchy insisting that only priests were learned enough to understand Scripture.

Spirituality today has expanded to include all walks of life, from bus drivers to gardeners to waitresses people who shine in the Spirit, Ryan said in a phone interview from his Washington, D.C. office, where he heads his congregations North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations.

Scripture is full of stories, such as Joseph, and the good Samaritan, a well-intentioned businessman traveling along the road. Then the ordinary tourist crosses over and helps, Ryan said.

Not long ago, the theory was that spirituality was just for the interior life, Ryan said. But spirituality involves absolutely everything in our lives in the grocery line, where our eyes go, where our minds go, how we drive a car, where we live, who our friends are.

When people do this, with a genuine wholistic spirituality, there is an ongoing spiritual brightness, he said.

God does not meet us in strong moralisms and dogmas, Ryan said. He meets us in our daily lives. Daily living is truly our daily bread.

Echoing that sentiment is the Rev. April Ulring Larson, bishop emeritus of the La Crosse Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and another conference speaker.

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Spirituality is attainable in all walks of life

At Full Circle church in Venice, picking up where earlier seekers left off

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Across the street from the Rose Cafe in Venice, a bad-boy actor is shepherding a crew of millennial "nones" toward what might be called the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Part II.

The incense-and-healing-crystal-accessorized movement known as New Age flourished here in the 1960s and '70s. No one ever wrote its obituary, but today it is diminished many of its tenets co-opted into the broader culture, with fitness-focused yoga studios popping up on every corner and "wellness" a mainstream goal.

The Venice group is stepping in where earlier seekers left off, rejecting aspects of New Age while channeling young millennials' approach to spirituality into a new movement or, at least, a really good party.

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FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of the graphic below listed incorrect percentages for religiously affiliated people ages 30 and older.

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On a recent Sunday, actor Andrew Keegan led a weekly ceremony called "Activ888." Young, fresh-faced men and women in various modes of casual dress some preppy, some with an edge joined an aging hippie or two in a large circle on the floor.

They shared what they hoped to "activate" by being at the church known as Full Circle that day: Joy. Beauty. Not taking things personally.

"So it is," participants said after each person spoke, an affirmation suspiciously similar to a post-prayer refrain from the TV series "Battlestar Galactica." A young woman with a breathtaking voice played a guitar and sang a mantra.

Some have called Full Circle a religion, others a clubhouse. Founder Keegan who's perhaps best known for his performance opposite Heath Ledger in the 1999 movie "10 Things I Hate About You" says it is meant to be a space for young adults to explore their spirituality and creativity, and to push back against gentrification in Venice.

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At Full Circle church in Venice, picking up where earlier seekers left off

Detoxify your Life: Part 3

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Kelly Spencer - Happy Healthy YOU

(A wellness column by Kelly Spencer: writer, life coach, yoga & meditation teacher, holistic healer and a mindful life enthusiast!)

Over the last couple weeks we have covered detoxification of the body and the mind. This week is about spiritual detox.

Years ago I, like many people, thought that spirituality had something to do with religion. It does not. Not to say that spirituality cannot be practiced in your religion, spirituality is more universal to all.

Christina Puchalski, MD, Director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, contends that "spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred."

The 7th energy system or chakra (meaning wheel of energy) in the body is called the Crown Chakra or Sahasrara. This energy system is believed to connect us to our identity, our meaning and our connection to the world and universe. While our body and our mind are very individual, this essence of the connection and experiences we each share are celebrated in our oneness.

When we are feeling toxic in our spirituality, we may find we dont feel like we belong, or experience lack of focus or direction, lack of self-understanding and even lack joy in life. We may suffer from addictions to substance, alcohol, food or other. Physically we may experience migraines, melancholy, and depression, to name a few.

Fear is one of the most common spiritual toxins on Earth. A Course in Miracles, a book written by Helen Schucman, states that fear is a state of mind in which one feels cut off from the universe and is the opposite of love. Fear can paralyze the body, upset digestion and cause physical tension as well as alter ones perceptions, judgments and decision.

Dr. Lawrence Wilson M.D. writes that perhaps one of the most important spiritual dis-eases is arrogance.

It is discussed in Oriental textbooks on medicine, but ignored in Western medicine, perhaps because many doctors suffer from this problem, he states.

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Detoxify your Life: Part 3

BlazeLeeDragon – Omegle Interviews #001 – Religion, Magic, Spirituality, Jediism – Video

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BlazeLeeDragon - Omegle Interviews #001 - Religion, Magic, Spirituality, Jediism
I decided to get onto Omegle to ask random people there thoughts on religion and spirituality. This is how it went. Not to bad and big thank you for those who agreed to be interviewed.

By: BlazeLeeDragon

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BlazeLeeDragon - Omegle Interviews #001 - Religion, Magic, Spirituality, Jediism - Video

On Spirituality

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Recently, the Jewish Ledger was kind enough to share the story of a special project I have been working on called The Shabbat Experience (Creating Spiritual Experiences with Music, Jewish Ledger, Feb. 6, 2015). While I appreciate the coverage, there was a segment in the article about young people and spirituality that inadvertently conveyed the wrong impression.

I am the founder, composer and music director of the New World Chorus and creator of The Shabbat Experience. My passion and all of my projects have had the common theme of bringing people together from diverse backgrounds and faiths through the power of music. In the past four years, I have been fortunate and honored to collaborate with numerous houses of worship, rabbis, cantors, ministers and diverse spiritual leaders who have inspired me, members of the choir and our wonderful community. With their support and guidance I have been able to produce many inspiring community interfaith events. They include: Temple Beth Els Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, Rev. Kate Heichler of Christ the Healer and the Interfaith Council of Southwestern CT, Rev. Dr. Frances Sink of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and Rabbi Jay TelRav of Temple Sinai, who was the first to partner with me in launching The Shabbat Experience.

There was a misunderstanding in the article regarding my views on spirituality. To be clear, I have personally experienced a sense of deep spirituality in ALL of these welcoming and inspiring houses of worship. In creating the Shabbat Experience, it has been my intention to be additive to the sense of community and spirituality that exists. The Shabbat Experience is designed to bring people together from diverse backgrounds to experience the beauty of Shabbat through music and reflection. My hope is that when people attend they experience a profound sense of belonging to community, feel known and cared for and, through these connections, nourish their spiritual selves.

There is no one recipe for spirituality. It abounds within us and around us. How and when we plug into that spirituality is part of each individuals spiritual journey. The Shabbat Experience is my contribution to the rich array of spiritual options we are all so blessed to have available to us.

Beth Styles, Stamford

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On Spirituality

Can Indie Filmmakers Save Religious Cinema?

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Christian movies have a reputation as being subpar and agenda-driven, but directors are increasingly telling rich stories about spirituality, theology, and the meaning of life.

As faith-based films flooded into theaters last year, writers fell over themselves to declare 2014 the year of the Bible movie. It seemed as if the marketmeaning Christian audiences to manyhad finally come into its own, a decade after the runaway box-office success of The Passion of the Christ.

Certainly, movies that reinforce beliefs their target audience already hold can make a lot of money, from political documentaries directed by Michael Moore or Dinesh DSouza to films titled with declarations of religious certainty. Gods Not Dead, a drama about an evangelical student who clashes with a philosophy professor, earned $62.6 million on a $2 million budget. Heaven Is for Real, starring Greg Kinnear, cost $12 million and made $101.3 million. Son of God, which cut down the television miniseries The Bible to feature-film length, made $67.8 million, or three times its budget. And even Biblical epics that religious audiences found questionable, such as Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings, did respectable business abroad.

Noah vs. Son of God: The Twin Pitfalls of Biblical Films

But those numbers only tell part of the story. Left Behind, a remake of the bestselling apocalyptic novels, starred Nicolas Cage and had a $16 million budget but opened to dismal reviews and grossed only $14 million domestically. Kirk Camerons Saving Christmas, universally panned, made $2.8 million, as did The Identical, with a cast including Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta. Grace Unplugged, a family drama, made about $2.5 million; The Song, which most critics ranked a notch above its peers, pulled in barely $1 million at the box office, as did Persecuted, a thriller that grossed $1.5 million.

I watched the year of the Bible film happen from the inside, as the chief film critic at one of the oldest and most widely read evangelical publications in the world, Christianity Today. Ive come to realize there is both widespread category confusion in the industry about what constitutes a faith-based audience and ignorance about a burgeoning religious movement in independent cinemasomething that was especially apparent earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

In the movie business, Christian or religious usually gets conflated with the faith-and-family audience, sidestepping a wide swath of people of faith who arent looking for safe stories. One publicist informed me ahead of Sundance that the film she was representing wasn't appropriate for Christians. Another told me it would never have occurred to her to pitch me. Marketers, publicists, and distributors tend to view Christian moviegoers as a monolithically single-minded group staunchly opposed to any film that might garner more than a PG rating, and only interested in movies that depict Biblical stories, tell inspirational biographical tales (mostly about athletes, brave children, or war heroes), or explicitly reinforce their own beliefs.

If you ask me, the most Christian film released in 2014 was Calvary, which premiered at Sundance in 2014. The movie starred Brendan Gleeson as a tough but loving priest facing his death in a remote fishing village. Rife with religious imagery and resonances, the films message about forgiveness and redemption is thoroughly consistent with Christian theology and features a bracing view of the havoc wreaked on generations of children by abusive ministers (by no means a problem exclusive to Catholics). Though it got left out of many faith-based discussions because it garnered an R rating from the MPAA for sexual references, language, brief strong content, and some drug use, it earned raves from secular and religious critics alike, garnering a Rotten Tomatoes score of 89 percent.

Calvary, along with movies like the Oscar nominees Ida and Selma, is an explicitly religious exploration of widely asked questions that doesnt point to easy answers. Several Christian critics writing for religious outlets (including myself) put all three of these films in our top ten lists for the yearwhile also facing significant backlash from some readers who were horrified that wed praise, let alone watch, a blasphemous film like Noah.

But I noticed something interesting. For every angry reader who contacted meand there were many, and they were causticanother expressed gratitude. Many were Christians; some had grown up in church and left it behind; a few were indifferent to religion altogether. All, however, were looking for carefully crafted films that took the religious experience seriously.

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Can Indie Filmmakers Save Religious Cinema?


  1. Spirituality