Here is a simple form of meditation that will help you to be clear minded and self controlled at all times (I Peter 4:7).  Simply say, “Dear God.” and then relax your body and your breathing whether sitting or taking a slow thoughtful walk.  Do not try to control your mind rigidly.  The more you do this, usually the more your mind shall wander.  Do not try to focus on one thought and exclude all others.  Again your mind will naturally reject this kind of rigidity.

Instead let your thoughts flow freely on any subject you are interested in or centered upon at the moment.  It can be a problem that worries you and you are seeking a solution to it.  Let the thoughts that come into your mind flow freely.   Do not judge them and say I should not be thinking this way but in some other way.

Instead observe your thoughts.  Become aware of them.  It is a law of physics that observation of sub-atomic particles changes their behavior.  And so it is mentally.  The objective, consciously aware observation of our thoughts as we let them flow past us changes the power assigned to them.  By observation we learn that our thoughts are not reality.

Much of our suffering in life is due to our taking our thoughts about our experience as reality.  We may be rejected in life and rejection is painful.  But far more hurtful than the actual act of rejection is our thoughts about that rejection and how it may happen again.   If we think,  “I did not deserve this.  This is so unjust.  Who else hates me?  How can I  bear this?  How awful it will be when I have to face them again.  What will they do to me next?”  Then we increase our suffering and pain ten fold.

But if we become aware of our thoughts and in observation of them realize that they are not real; they are only thoughts and we dismiss them.  Watch them dissipate into nothingness because we have dismissed them.  Then we can accept the actual rejection as just a part of life and we embrace it and take it into the center of our being.

If we by this form of meditation can refrain from judging any event of pain that happens to us as good or bad,  then we diminish our pain and increase our joy.  Let us ask of the events that happen to us, “What can I learn from this that will help me to do good.”  Doing this not only relieves our suffering but opens our hearts to compassion towards all creatures and we become united to the compassion of God.

If one gets the most out of a passage of scripture she must answer the question, “What is the conflict here?”  The conflict is not always self evident in a text.  It may be behind the text.  But you can bet there is always conflict there whether it is plain or hidden behind the scenes.  It is important to discover it to best interpret the scripture passage.

Take the beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  There is conflict behind it. Are we always pure in heart so that we see God in life and in others and expect to see Him in some sense after death?  No!  We are not.  That is the conflict that causes Jesus to teach us this blessed attitude as part of his way of life.  If it were not for conflict no scripture would have been written.

Now, what is the conflict in the New Testament story of John the Baptizer.  It is rivalry between some of the followers of his movement and some of those in the Jesus movement.

John’s baptism is a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  It signified one’s acceptance of God’s way of life of justice towards one’s fellow man and pious devotion towards God.  In Mark 1:9-11 Jesus begins his public life of service by being baptized by John.  John’s reform movement has much in common with that of Jesus.  Jesus baptism was a deep spiritual experience for him in which he was confirmed as a very special child of God.

About 15 years later, 85 C.E., Matthew changes Mark’s story of Jesus’ baptism to show Jesus’ superiority to John (Matt. 3:13-14).  Later still, about 95 C.E., the Gospel of John suppresses Jesus’ baptism altogether, leaving it out, and has John the Baptist only giving witness to Jesus as the Spirit annointed Son of God to further show Jesus’ superiority to John the Baptist (John 1: 32-34).  These difference are probably because of the conflict that went on for some time between the two movements.

“The Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by Carol Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe is a great addition to anyone’s bible study library.  It is a compact volume on the whole Bible and The Apocrypha.  It can be acquired in paperback.

It has excellent concise commentary on the history, historicity, composition, contents and context of every book of the Bible or Apocrypha.  It singularly focuses on what the text says, implies or fails to say about women.  Its primary purpose is to help one find women’s story in the scriptures and build their own story now under the sovereign grace and rule of God.

It is insightful in understanding how different groups like women have been subjugated, oppressed and ignored by the dominant culture.  It also highlights the places in scripture where women are exalted and honored and shows how we today can understand and apply this to our lives.

This is a wonderful work of helpful scholarship for anyone to have in their possession and read.

“The Choice is Always ours, an inspirational anthology on the Ways of God, finding it and following it, techniques for walking in the Way, and the outcomes of walking in the Way.  It was published in 1948, the year of my birth and updated in 1960, about when I began seriously walking in the Way.  Dorothy Berkley Phillips edited the book.

It is a big volume of 430 pages of essays and excerpts from the greatest thinkers of the ages on what constitutes living in the Way.  Our hurried and hassled age does not seem to produce this type of beautiful anthology anymore.

It has quotes from Presidents, poets, literary greats, mystics, spiritual leaders, physicists and other scientists, sacred writings, psychotherapists,   on the Way and its meaning.  It is so rich and delightful reading one can digest only a page or so at a time.

For example the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who came to America, said this on the Way.  “It is commonly called vocation:  an irrational factor that destines a person to emancipate from the herd and its well-worn paths.  True personality is always a vocation and puts his trust in it as in God, despite its being, as the ordinary man would say, only a personal feeling.  But vocation acts like a law of God from which there is no escape….The original meaning of  “to have a vocation” is “to be addressed by a voice.”  The clearest examples of this are to be found in the avowals of the Old Testament prophets….To listen to the voice of your inner man is to have a call, a vocation, and this leads to full personality…One of the most shining examples of the meaning of personality that history has preserved for us is the life of Christ, obeying the inner call of his vocation.  He turned the madness that accompanied Caesarism and the Roman Empire into a universal spiritual kingdom that offered salvation, deliverance to all men.”

Jung, in terms of modern psychology, has here defined what Elijah, the Father of Hebrew Prophecy, called the thin inner voice or small still voice that spoke within him and was the voice of God to him.  Following this voice with a sense of  vocation leads to wholeness but just hearing voices leads to madness, often times.

Find this book, read it.  You are bond to like some of it and it will change your life.

“The Choice is Always Ours” is an inspirational anthology on finding and following the Way of God, techniques for walking in the Way and the outcomes of walking in the Way.  It was published in 1948, the year of my birth and updated in 1960, about when I began seriously walking in the Way.  It was edited by Dorothy Berkley Phillips.

It is a big volume, 430 pages, of essays and excerpts from the greatest thinkers of the ages.  Our hurried and hassled age does not produce such rich anthologies anymore.

It quotes Presidents, poets, literary greats, mystics, spiritual leaders, sacred writings, psychotherapists , physicists and other scientists on the Way and its meaning.  Rich and delightful reading, one can digest only a page or so at a time.

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who came to America, says this on the Way.  “It is commonly called vocation:  an irrational factor that destines a person to emancipate himself from the herd and its well-worn paths.  True personality is always a vocation and puts his/her trust in it as in God, despite its being, as the ordinary person would say, only a personal feeling.  But vocation acts like a law of God from which there is no escape….The original meaning of “to have a vocation” is “to be addressed by a voice.”  The clearest examples of this are to be found in the avowals of the Old Testament prophets….  To listen to the voice of your inner person is to have a call, a vocation, and this leads to a full personality….  One of the most shining examples of the meaning of personality that history has preserved for us is the life of Christ, obeying the inner call of his vocation.  He turned the madness that accompanied Caesarism and the Roman Empire into a universal spiritual kingdom that offered deliverance to all people.”

Find this book,read it.  You are bound to like some of it and it will change your life.

The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch is a marvelous history of the explosion of Christianity in the Second Great Awakening between 1780 and 1830.  After our success in the Revolutionary War of Independence the principles of Jeffersonian democracy which exalted the common man mixed with evangelical revivalitic fervor and produced a period of tremendous growth of the Christian Church in America, especially on the frontier.

This book shows  the good this movement accomplished but also the bad and ugly it birthed religiously, socially and politically.  It used principles of Jeffersonian democracy to exalt the common citizen which gave many of the masses a sense of identity and importance.

This glorification of the common man ultimately led in the 1830″s to the election of Andrew Jackson, the frontier’s common man’s president.  But this over exaltation of the virtues of the common man led to an ugly atmosphere of rejection which made it nearly impossible to ever again elect an intellectual and political giant such as Thomas Jefferson or John Adams who represent the kind of men who formed our democratic institutions.

This same anti-intellectual bias can be seen in religious people today who strongly resent a leader like Barak Obama.  They will not even give him a chance because of this ingrained anti-intellectual bias.

This period Christianized America but it was a brawling, arguing, sometimes hateful, biting sectarian American frontier form of Christianity.  It was strongly prejudiced against educated clergy, established churches, trained theologians and often the medical profession and all lawyers.  In its extreme individualism it was anti authoritarian.

Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, The Church of Christ were born in or from this period of volcanic religious chaos.  Methodists and Baptists benefitted the most from it.  There was greatness and sacrifice in this era but littleness and hatefulness also.

Francis Asbury, the first American Methodist Bishop, ruled Methodists in this period with an iron hand.  But he lived in poverty to further the cause of Christ never drawing more than $80.00 a year in salary which was the amount paid to the frontier circuit riding preachers.  On the other hand, Alexander Campbell of the Church of Christ movement became one of the wealthiest men in his state from the movement.

This is exciting and inspiring reading.  Read it and meet your American religious ancestors both the heroic and the heinous.

Harold Kushner is a best selling author whose most well known book is “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”   “Conquering Fear” is his latest very good work.  It is a marvelous book of wisdom on overcoming fear for people of all religious persuasions as well as people who may not have a religious persuasion.  His thesis is that living by hope and courage is the will of God for every one.  He calls “Thou shalt not be afraid,” the eleventh commandment.

There can be no life in this world without fear.  To be afraid is a natural part of a human life.  But one must not and need not let fear control his life or dominate or determine his actions in any way.  There is always a way for us to rise above our fears.  God is our helper in this.

It is everyone’s duty to face his fears and get on with his life.  He shows how survival of the fittest is not nature’s law or way.  Rather the law of God’s  natural world is the survival and prosperity of those who learn to share.

God created nature but nature has no mind, will or conscience.  It just is and always acts naturally bringing both the good and the destructive on both just and unjust people.  God does not send or cause natural disasters.  They just are a part of life.  He is not in control of them.

We have to study nature and make wise decisions according to nature’s history.  For example,  no matter how righteous one is, if he builds his home on the beach it will likely at some point be destroyed by sea or hurricane.  Such  are not acts of God.  They are something that we all just have to live with the possibility of but we can can live with them without being controlled by fear.

Kushner deals with the fear of terrorism, of rapid change, of humanity’s self destruction, of growing old and of death.  The chapters on terrorism and death were the most helpful to me.

Kushner’s sense of humor, religious insights and practical use of Bible stories to illustrate his point make the book well worth reading.  It is a book which will help the average man on the street to face and overcome  his fears.

” God’s Tapestry” by W. Eugene March is a short, marvelous book that wisely shows us how we can best serve God in a pluralistic religious and political world.  It offers great correctives to destructive attitudes of current American Christianity and politics.

The theme of the book is “reading the Bible in a world of religious diversity.”  It suggests that Christians must let go of the interpretations of exclusivity they have developed.  Exclusivity that says only our group is going to heaven; all others are going to Hell.

We must open our eyes and see that in so many places the Bible teaches that strangers differing from us are so often bearers of divine grace.  This means that other religions as well as other social and political groups can and do bear Divine grace also.  They have something important we can learn from them.

The wholesome biblical interpretation we need is illustrated by a story in the Babylonian Talmud.  A voice from Heaven speaks to settle a severe disagreement between the schools of Hillel and Shammai.  It says, “These and these are the words of the living God, but the halakah, interpretation, is according to Hillel.”

This meant that both views were true but the preferred interpretation was of Hillel because Hillel always mentioned first his opponent’s viewpoint when he spoke.  When teaching Torah he never presumed that he might have the absolute unique truth but rather admitted that two opinions might have plausibility and meaning.  (P. 88).

We need to assume this attitude in working with diverse peoples.  God smiles upon this attitude that “probably there are multiple truths rather than just one on the human level.”  (p. 89).

“This Tragic Gospel” by Louis Ruprecht, Jr. was published in 2008 by Jossey-bass of San Francxisco.  It is a very good schoraly, historical analytic  commentary on the Gospel of John.  I purchased it from Cokesbury Book Stores.

I was interested in the book because I am a church historian.  Modern historical biblical scholarship in general does not think highly of the historical accuracy of John’s witness to Jesus.  It is more what a certain segment of the church believed about Jesus at the close of the first century C.E. instead of real history.  As such it was possibly trying to replace the Matthew, Mark, Luke view of Jesus.  This is part of the teaching of this book.

Ruprecht’s message is that John’s view of Jesus corrupted the compassionate heart of Christianity and promoted the attitude of harsh triumphalism in the church.  Triumphalism is the attitude that says, “We are number one.  And you had better listen to us because if you don’t, you are going to Hell!”

John’s view of Christ was also the main cause of the hateful and divisive trinitarian and Christological debates of the second, third and fourth centuries C.E. in the church.  It is possible that these debates would never have occurred without John’s declaration of Christ as eternal, pre-existent Word of God.

John teaches that Christianity functions best when hated by the world.  This is a philosophy suited for courting persecution.  It is a totally unwholesome attitude for followers of Jesus’ way.

This book can help liberate one from the arrogant exclusivity which is a bad side of the Christian Church’s history.  I recommend it to anyone interested in biblical history and a more Christ like compassion towards life and others.

I was very proud and moved to tears Thursday morning as our President O’bama gave the Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Norway.  It was an awesome personal testimony of his beliefs and philosophy.  It was a a profound example of a moral man’s struggle to find the right path in an immoral world.  It laid out the best of our American ideals and example.  It reminded us of the better angels of our nation’s history and that as a nation we represent far more to the world than just our nation’s self-interest.

It represented honest pride of nation but great humility also.  And America needs to be sincerely humble, strong but humble.

I support President O’bama’s policies and style of leadership.  I believe he has the stuff of a great leader but like the great prophets of old, will he be without honor in his own country?  His leadership style has wisdom and is full of faith in our democratic institutions.  But have we lost faith in those same institutions to where they will soon cease to function?

The President is a constitutional lawyer who believes in each branch of government doing its job.  Have you noticed that both houses of Congress are working harder than they probably have in thirty years?  O’bama’s popularity has slipped at home only because he is facing the hard problems one after another head on.

But many Americans are spiritually and intellectually lazy.  They want quick, easy solutions to everything.  They start whining when something like health care reform is debated a few months.  They will not make the effort to understand.  And it takes effort because our social problems and the governance of our nation is complicated.  But we can understand better if we really want to and apply ourselves.  And we all would be better for our making the effort.  Our democracy will not survive without a well educated populace.  Perhaps many modern Americans would have rejected the lengthy debate that gave us the compromises that formed our constitution and birthed our country.

I support the new policy for Afghanistan and think it the wisest possible at this time.  Look at the surge of International support we are getting there.  This is due in large part to the current administration’s leadership.  The only thing I would do different is put a ten cent war tax per gallon on gasoline to give the troops what they need over there and here when they come back bruised and broken.  We all need to sacrifice for our troops and our country by putting our money where our mouth is.

Let us pray diligently for all our leaders.  Our current President though not perfect has a great deal of Christian essence in his soul.  Thankfully, he is a man who knows there is far more to politics than abortion and gay marriage.