Posts tagged Spirituality
Spin-Kicking For Jesus And Other Karate Moves

(OPINION) A lot of people — hordes, in fact — feel some amorphous pull toward the spiritual. There’s the old saying that all people are born with a God-shaped hole in them and only God can fill it. At some point in their lives many folks become seekers. But just as we all have to start at the beginning, we all have to grow.

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In 2024, I’ve Come To Value Kindness Above All

(OPINION) Ever since I turned 35, I’ve tried to use this time of year to take stock, to evaluate where I’ve been over the previous 12 months, where I stand now and where I see myself going. Some years nothing much has changed. Other years much has changed, and I find myself contradicting what I’ve said previously. Here goes for 2024.

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Street Scrolls: The Beats, Rhymes And Spirituality Of Latin Hip-Hop

(ANALYSIS) There is an unstudied wisdom in the defiant, dirty beats of hip-hop, and even religious dimensions – a focus of my research today, which explores the prophetic and even mystical elements in the genre. Its lyrics can be sweet like honey, as the biblical prophet Ezekiel describes the scroll of the Lord. Yet they can also be bitter, like the herbs of Passover – a remembrance of pains and indignities.

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What Canst Thou Say? A 17th Century Quaker Cry For Modern Deconstructionists

(OPINION) Because a key tenet of Quakerism is continuing revelation, Quakerism has become a safe place to explore spiritual journeys and learn what your own Inner Light is saying to you. It was the echo I saw between the early Quakers and the current seekers and the need I saw for an in-flesh community that led me to advocate for a workshop to explore those ideas.

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We Often Find God, Faith And Freedom By Bumping Into Things

(OPINION) We learn the most valuable things we learn not so much by embarking on a purposeful pilgrimage or a defined course of study — although such pursuits have their place — but by flopping blindly through life bumping into things.

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Making Sweat Feel Spiritual Didn’t Start With SoulCycle

(ANALYSIS) The notion that fitness is a religion — a place where people find community, ritual and ecstatic experience — has become a common refrain. Can fitness really be a religion? Given the difficulty of defining religion, it’s an almost impossible question to answer.

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How Nonreligious Americans Are Finding Ways Of Pursuing Meaning

(ANALYSIS) In her study of multiple SBNR identities, theologian Linda Mercadante found that the turn away from organized religion does not necessarily come at the expense of faith, ritual or practice. For “post-Christianity” seekers, Mercadante stresses how spiritual fulfillment moves from “religious and civic institutions to ‘gathering places.’”

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What's Behind the Enduring Popularity of Crystals?

(ANALYSIS) Crystals aren’t just eye-catching stones. Quartz is used in electronics because it possesses piezoelectric properties that cause it to release an electric charge when compressed. But, as skeptics are quick to point out, there is no evidence crystals can bring health, prosperity or any of the other properties that crystal enthusiasts may attribute to them.

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