Author: william

Jesus famously proclaims: "Repent, for the Kingdom of the Heavens is at hand!" The word translated as "repent" is another example of English lacking a word that expresses the depth of the Greek. The English word "repent" has the connotation of "stop doing something that you like", whereas the Greek word METANOIA (meh-TAH-nee-ah) means something quite…

"The Dove Descending" W. Zeitler [ORGAN] "Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart" Improvisation In the story of Jesus’ baptism, why does the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove? And not a camel or a cactus? It must be because God is trying to tell us something by using that particular representation.…

Once upon a time there was a Book. It contained spiritual teachings, stories, and even some history. But this Book had another, hidden feature: it was a mirror. If your heart was filled with hate, you would read this Book and find all the hate you could want. If your heart was filled with compassion,…

Once upon a time I read that when the nation of Israel was being created in 1947, that the leading Rabbis were gathered to decide what the national language would be. You'd think it would obviously be Hebrew, but the concern was that if Hebrew became the national language, then the language of the Torah…

In Christian monasticism, a period of years of rigorous study of Sacred Texts and spiritual practice were regarded as prerequisites for meditative practice and expression of the Teachings in daily life. Many other religious traditions have the same view. This suggests that the modern Western search for spiritual experiences, frequently divorced from serious religious study…

Prelude in C (BWV 547)        J.S.Bach (1685-1750) [ORGAN] "There's a Wideness To God's Mercy" Fugue in C (BWV 547) J.S.Bach (1685-1750) More observations on the first chapter of John’s Gospel begun last week… The Middle East, including first century Palestine, was (and still is) very patriarchal. Yet sometimes translations make the New…

In studying the martial arts, in order to improve it is absolutely essential to spar with your betters. There is no way around it: if you want to get better, you have to spar with partners who can hand you your ass on a platter. Mind you, the lesson is not to just stand there…

The metaphor of ‘left brain vs. right brain’ is oversimplified, of course, but does have its uses. You know, the idea that the left hemisphere of the brain is concerned with reason and logic, and the right with poetry and imagination. In that sense I think it is safe to say that our culture has…

When it comes to Creativity, it would seem that 'new' ideas must come either from nowhere or somewhere. The notion of 'creative ideas from nothing' is much like the Christian idea that God created the cosmos ex nihilo — Latin for 'from nothing'. But there's another kind of creativity — combining existing things in new…

Science is built on the principle of repeatable experiments: at least in the hard sciences one can repeat any of its experiments and verify the results for oneself. (In the 'softer' sciences like geology, however, it may be a little harder to reproduce results requiring millions of years!) But suppose one actually wanted to take…