SUNDAY LECTURE | Unlearning and Unknowing

December 15, 2024 Bill Kerley

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for De member 15, 2024

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Dear Ones -

First, the Ordinary Life Christmas party is this Friday night. See the Ordinary Life website for details. click here.

Second, Jan Phillips who was with us in January 2023, has a new book out. It would make a wonderful Christmas gift for yourself or someone else. Though it won’t be available until mid-January, you can order it now on Amazon. I’ve been privileged to see the first hundred pages and it is a treasure trove of quotes, musings, and amazing photographs. It is titled “Stop Seeking, Start Finding: A Book of Hours for Spiritual Evolutionaries.” I’ve ordered my copy. click here.

As for this week’s teaching, I called it

Unlearning and Unknowing

There are two ways to deal with any position one takes, including a religious one: the way of explanation or the way of exploration. I am teaching the way of exploration. There is no one true faith or path into the heart of Sacred Mystery. There is only the way of compassion and justice. We will likely have to unlearn things in order to get to the truth that the things we learned were trying to teach when they were first formulated. The teaching ends with a comparison of the birth narratives in Matthew and Like.

That’s a brief summary.

The audio/video versions of the talk has some differences from the text I spoke from. You can find the text of the talk, the presentation slides and links to the audio and video version of the talk using the links below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

In order to read or download the text version of the talk, click here.

In order to view or download the presentation slides, click here.

In order to view or download the announcement slides, click here.

In order to listen to or download the audio recording of today’s talk, please use the audio player below.

In order to watch the video recording of today’s talk, please use the YouTube player link below.

SUNDAY LECTURE | Mary Had a Baby

December 8, 2024 Bill Kerley

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for December 8, 2024

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Dear Ones -

We begin the journey of “Walking the Way” with the birth stories told about Jesus. And, more specifically, with the stories created about Mary. In order to undertake the journey we are on I believe we must be:

open, be willing to conceive of the new, be willing to go through pregnancy, and to give birth.

These are some of the things we can appreciate and appropriate from these stories.

Dr. Holly Hudley led us through each of these four areas and ended with a powerful poem. By the way, the time began by our singing a duet together. The session ended with a quote from. mystic Meister Eckhart: What good is it that Christ was born 2,000 years ago if He is not born now in your heart?

That’s a brief summary. Information about how to find the full text and video are below.

The audio/video versions of the talk has some significant differences from the text we spoke from. You can find the text of the talk, the presentation slides and links to the audio and video version of the talk using the links below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

In order to read or download the text version of the talk, click here.

In order to view or download the presentation slides, click here.

In order to view or download the announcement slides, click here.

In order to listen to or download the audio recording of today’s talk, please use the audio player link below.

In order to watch the video of today’s talk, use the link below.

SUNDAY LECTURE | An Invitation To Walk The Way

December 1, 2024 Bill Kerley

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for De member 1, 2024

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Dear Ones -

This week I introduced a new theme I will be following in my teaching for the foreseeable future. It is

Walking the Way

I have taken the idea for this from lines found in a book of theology by Sara Grant. The lines are: “It isn’t the way because Jesus walked it. Jesus walked it because it is the way.” Sara Grant’s pivotal work is about a non dual-approach that invites the reader to reflect on the universality of spiritual truth while remaining rooted in their own tradition.

It is my intention to dig deeply into the Jesus narratives to find out what these stories meant for those who first heard them and their relevance for us. We began this week with reflections on the birth stories of Jesus. Everyone in most cultures knows something about the stories of Christmas. They touch something deep within us - our yearning for peace and hope for a “better world.” What, however, were the stories created to convey? What did they mean for those who first heard them? How can they contribute to our “walking the way.”

That’s a brief summary. Information about how to find the full text and video are below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!

Be well and much love,

Bill Kerley

In order to read or download the text of the talk, click here.

In order to view or download the presentation slides, click here.

In order to view or download the announcements slides, click here.

In order to listen to or download today’s talk, use the audio player below.

SUNDAY LECTURE | Relevant and Prophetic

November 24, 2024 Bill Kerley

ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of Ordinary Life for November 24, 2024

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Dear Ones -

I called the teaching I offered this week in Ordinary Life -

“Relevant and Prophetic”

The theologian Karl Barth, who influenced an entire generation of preachers and theology teachers, once advised, “Preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”

When Barth said this, the understanding people had of the Bible was that which was influenced by the scholarship that was coming out of Germany at the time. And, when he used the word “newspaper,” there was no such thing as the internet and social media. His advice, taken seriously today is problematic because of so many diverse understandings about the Bible and, also, the diversity of places where people get their “news.”

Using a parable from the early Jesus movement about Jesus walking on water, I seek not only to interpret that story but also to find the relevance it has for our time.

In the teaching I mention an interview I saw with presidential historian Jon Meacham on the PBS program “Firing Line.” A link to that program and to the transcript of the program can be found on the Ordinary Life website.

That’s the summary. Information about how to find the full text and video are below.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here. There is an option to scroll to “Ordinary Life” as the option for how to designation your gift. Thank you!