spirituality

May everyone have a Merry Christmas and be given a spiritual experience of Christian Mysticism , which introduces the mind to the soul radiating from the center of our being to connect, guide, and sooth our energy. Energy radiates from the soul similar to an electrical current giving light to a bulb.

The great Tao flows everywhere.
All things are born from it,
yet it doesn't create them.

Truth, Love and Peace may be considered theoretical because no one can see them, but we can see their results. Because of their manifestations we can conclude that their reality exists, but we cannot give a reason why Truth is true. At the same time the scientist can't give a good explanation for the action of the atom.

Like all other great personalities who walked on earth, jesus christ himself was a mystic. he was born with it... not surprising that he was able to do some really mysteriously amazing things like miracles, extraordinary abilities like walking on water, etc. he was in a god state of mind...

Hi folks. In the library where I work, the reference and children's department annually has a summer reading program where people make a list of the books that they read during the summer. I've always been a bookworm, and books have played an important role in influencing my views on politics and spirituality. One of the things that has most impressed me about the various Crossleft bloggers has been their insights and their unique perspectives on politics and Christianity.

Just out of curiousity, I wonder if Crossleft readers would like to share what books have had a profound influence on their views on politics and Christianity. Since most of the readers of this site are Christian and are influenced by the Bible, what books of the Bible most influenced you? In sharing your books, we may get to know a little more about you and your philosphy of life.

Angelo

In the March/April 2008 edition of Tikkun Magazine, Walter Wink, Professor emeritus of Auburn Theological Seminary, pondered upon what happened to Jesus and his disciples:

"No two resurrection accounts in the four Gospels are alike. At the core of all these accounts is the simple testimony: we experienced Jesus as alive…The resurrection appearances did not… take place in the temple before thousands of worshipers, but in the privacy of homes or cemeteries. They did not occur before religious authorities, but to the disciples hiding from those authorities.

"What happened was every bit as real as any other event, only it was not historically observable…Though skeptics might interpret what the disciples experienced as a mass hallucination, the experience itself cannot be denied…what may have happened: the very image of God was altered by the sheer force of Jesus being. God would never be the same. Jesus had indelibly imprinted the divine…In Jesus God took on humanity, furthering the evolution revealed in Ezekiel's vision of Yahweh on the throne in "the likeness, as it were, of a human form." -Ezek. 1:26.

Sex and The Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth, by Daniel A. Helminiak (Binghamton: Harrington Park Press, 2006), 235pp. (Review by Scott D. Pomfret, www.sincemylastconfession.com.)

Daniel Helminiak’s project in his 2006 collection of previously published essays, Sex and the Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth, is a naked act of reclamation. Helminiak, a Catholic priest, professor of psychology and longtime member of the gay Catholic group Dignity, sets his sights on terms like “spirituality”, “Christianity”, and “natural law,” and wrests them from those who would use them to oppress gay people. He provides a cogent re-description of these and related terms in an effort to draw gays and lesbians back to the Eucharistic table. Helminiak’s manner is gentle and affirming: he knows that he is preaching to a GLBT audience of the wounded, who regard religious concepts with wariness at best and an understandable outright hostility in many cases. Heroically, he barely acknowledge Sisyphusian nature of his project; he says one thing that brings GLBT spiritual beings close; religious authorities say something new and hurtful that drives them away all over again.