Got an email about a week ago asking for people to do a review of Mark’s new book due out August 19th, Wild Goose Chase. His last book, In a Pit, With a Lion on a Snowy Day, is one of those books that I find myself giving out to people constantly. Mark’s style, both in writing and in person is at once familiar and straightforward. He has the ability to immediately build a rapport with an audience so that the discussion can move deeper.
Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be able to review the book and let you guys know what it’s all about…Peace.
I wrote about this book several months ago. It was the sort of book that I needed to read, then set aside and then read again. I finished the book during our vacation last week and had to comment on it.
Some of the subject matter is both intriguing and disturbing. The author posits some radical thoughts about the very act of thinking and the thoughts influence on the world around it. 
Definitely for the brave of heart, I found myself at times putting the book down and verbally asking questions out loud…to no one in particular. This book provoked my thinking and stoked the intensity of my belief in the incredible possibilities in human development.
“The Intention Experiment” takes you through plausible, though detailed, studies and experiments on the power of the humnan mind and spirit. In the end you are invited to continue the “experiment” yourself and interact with an online community of people and experience the power of intention personally.
Though I do not hold to all the author describes and concludes, I do think the subject matter is of importance to those who desire to see the interconnectedness of the mind and the spirit.
This past week we have been out on vacation to Panama City. I can’t tell you how much it meant for us to be away for a few days, just the two of us. We did the shops, the beach, the restaurants and the dog-track. The greatest part of getting away is that time around thirty hours after you arrive when you really arrive to vacation.
We didn’t watch television and only got on the Internet to pay a bill once – it was heaven. We didn’t hear about Obama this or McCain that; we didn’t know about the hurricane Dolly, and the only way we found out any good news in gas was by stopping in Donalsonville and paying $3.61 a gallon for gas!
We had a great time, and had some great experiences. It was good to see the kids and Zora and have the regular noises of family life take their places.
The important thing learned was that you have to plan these times – they do not simply happen. The hum and buzz of the world doesn’t want you to take a break, but when you do, the sense of reconnecting and really being has more benefits than all the buzz in the world.
However, it is good to be back!
A key word in today’s message was the word “restoration”. In relation to the typical meaning of the Gospel, I love the way that “restoration” completes a largely incomplete thought which for years,the establishment church has asked us to accept.
Many people have gone to church this Sunday thinking that they have a “ticket to heaven” or a “get out of hell free card”. The problem with this mentality is that it negates the vastness of the purpose of Christ’s coming to Earth in the first place. To buy in to a quick fix religion may make you feel better, but it hardly exemplifies anything that would require giving my life for.
Let’s face it, most of what is served up as Christianity today is a mixture of some three or four word phrase taken out of context to drive home a point that is at best a diluted truth and at worst a man-made, man-created, man-centered doctrine. What are you willing to die for?
That is a question that ought to bring up family and proven core ideals. If your church or belief system isn’t among the list of “to die for” items, you need to reevaluate the substance of your beliefs. Only then will you be able to “know” what you believe.
Restoration is not just a onetime process either, if a home has survived hundreds of years, it has gone through many restorations. Time and use wear away and restoration lets us bring back the feeling of new while preserving the past. The same is true with the church and ourselves. Restoration continually brings back the “new” in our lives. Our appreciation and value of Christ increases and we again reconnect to the Source with renewed vigor, excitement and confidence.
This cycle of wear, restore, wear and restore brings us closer and closer to an unwavering realness in our journey with God. With each cycle His reality overtakes our notion of reality and He is made anew in our eyes.
Instead of struggling against this process, embrace it as a way to be drawn closer to a heart that is affectionate and fond of you.
Kevin Kelly is by far one of my top ten people alive right now. His ability to see and understand the complex world of evolving science and then express that understanding in simple terms is one of his many gifts. The following is a portion of an article about the big questions.
“Information is expanding 10 times faster than any product on this planet – manufactured or natural. According to Hal Varian, an economist at UC Berkeley and a consultant to Google, worldwide information is increasing at 66 percent per year – approaching the rate of Moore’s law – while the most prolific manufactured stuff – paper, let’s say, or steel – averages only as much as 7 percent annually. By this rough metric, knowledge is growing exponentially.
. A decade ago, author John Horgan interviewed prestigious scientists in many fields and concluded in his book The End of Science that all the big questions had been answered. The world of science has been roughly mapped and all that remains now is to color in the details.
So why do we still have so many unanswered questions? Take the current state of physics: We don’t know what 96 percent of the universe is made of. We call it “dark matter,” a euphemism for our ignorance.
Yet it is also clear that we know far more about the universe than we did a century ago, and we have put this understanding to practical use – in consumer goods like GPS receivers and iPods, in medical devices like MRI scanners, and in engineered materials like photovoltaic cells and carbon nanotubes. Our steady and beneficial progress in knowledge comes from steady and beneficial progress in tools and technology. Telescopes, microscopes, fluoroscopes, and oscilloscopes allow us to see in new ways and to know more about the universe.
The paradox of science is that every answer breeds at least two new questions. More answers mean even more questions, expanding not only what we know but also what we don’t know. Every new tool for looking farther or deeper or smaller allows us to spy into our ignorance. Future technologies such as artificial intelligence, controlled fusion, and quantum computing (to name a few on the near horizon) will change the world – that means the biggest questions have yet to be asked.
– Kevin Kelly, author of Cool Tools
When Kevin is talking about every question breeding two more, I think the application can be found in the church. If we are wiling to begin to ask questions (which some do not believe we can/should), the result is more and more questions, but also a more distilled and refined view of religious ideas long left unchallenged and untouched. Unless we embrace the undulation of the living Journey, we will be destined to be included with those who said automobiles, television, personal computers and the internet were a fad.
Ask. Search. Seek. Question. At the end of these actions is real life!
For most of my life I sought after control over the various aspects of my life – job, finances, friends, vocation, etc. In each of these and many more I attained a certain amount of what I perceived to be control. The truth is, I have never had control and neither have you, but I can’t argue that there is comfort in the delusion that we have acquired control.
Lately I have found myself in a remarkable place – mentally and spiritually. In seeking to find “the answer” to a number of things, I have come to the realization that the end result of “the answer” is not near as important as the journey I take in seeking. This is counterintuitive to the nth degree, but the investment of time and emotion spent “in search of” something is vastly more valuable than any found answer.
We have a need to seek, find and move on to something new – a form of spiritual ADD – but taking in the moment by moment events in the journey toward an answer reveal themselves as divine stepping stones, not toward The answer, but inward toward the realm of The Kingdom Within.
In the end, I have found that the only thing I can be certain of is the constancy of uncertainty. If I refuse to act unless I have certainty, I will remain immobile and ineffective. The greatest joy is that the pull of Spirit to spirit is stronger than my need for certainty. So on I go in the journey.
The real revelation is that if we are eternal beings, the journey can’t possibly have an end.
I’m a quote fiend, and Thomas Merton is a good victim for me. “Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.” You may need to read and re-read those words. In general terms, anxiety of any kind stems from two forms of fear. One is the fear of losing control and the other is mistrust of the One to whom you are losing your control.
A repetitive topic here is that of Ego and its negative influence over our inner essence. Ego desires to remain in total control of your life indefinitely. Any fluctuation that may mean a renouncing or relinquishing of any control by your Ego will result in many different reactions. Frustration, guilt, shame, hate, anger and jealousy are just a few.
Specifically when related to spiritual, or as some would call “religious” issues, anxiety is the major symptom of intense insecurity. Another term this could be known as is “I believe it because ‘they’ told me and I haven’t really bothered to check it out myself, but I’m willing to cut friendships, offend family and ostracize myself from other people anyway” syndrome.
Never in all of scripture, both Christian and otherwise, is a follower told to “take someones word for it” in regard to spiritual teaching. Instead most spiritual documents call for a follower to look inside themselves and find the Truth. If the Kingdom was not “within” Christ would have never said so, especially if it was 180 degrees in the “out”. The difficulty is that “within” is a place few of us are willing to enter.
Last week I suggested that we look inside ourselves to begin the process of becoming Aware. The one thing I know is that the first step of peering deep in the crevices of our spirit is the most important. At the portal to our inner self He waits to guide us down and ultimately back up. It has been said that “the journey of a thousand steps begins with just one.” Take that first step within and prepare for the journey of a lifetime!
OK, so I “borrowed” an adjective from the popular book, The Audacity of Hope by Barak Obama (there, got all the copyright stuff out of the way). Today, I am embraced by and seeking to embrace more of a sense of gratefulness. It’s not about a particular place or thing or event, but it is coming from a desire to look beyond “my” world and see the great big world that has been given as a gift to all of us.
In our face daily there are plenty of things that we can “not” be grateful for, but when we bypass our own attachment and look around, there is far more to appreciate and be grateful for. I will go so far as to say the greatest thing we can do to open up the path for us to connect more closely to God is to become more grateful. Think about this today and then go put it into action!
What do the words mean to you? How do they make you feel?
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Now what does this mean to you ? How does this make you feel?
See the difference in linear and holistic? Linear lets you “know” something; holistic lets you “feel” something. Look around today and see what you notice as linear and holistic, you just might be surprised!
christopherhildreth 