SUNDAY LECTURE | You Are My Sunshine

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

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Summary of Ordinary Life for August 13, 2023

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Dear Ones -

Registration for the day with Suzanne Stabile is now open. To register click here.

The experience is being called:

The Path Between Us:
The Enneagram and Relationships

She will be with us from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 30. She will also return for the Ordinary Life hour that Sunday.

If you are unfamiliar with the Enneagram, it is a personality typing system that is used by most spiritual directors to aid in spiritual growth and understanding of one’s Self.

I have asked Brooke Summers-Perry to come and use the Ordinary Life hour on Sunday, September 10 and do a good introduction to the Enneagram. You will want to be sure to attend this time. There is, of course, no charge for this time.

I called the time in Ordinary Life this week -

“You Are My Sunshine”

Three pieces came together this week to help me offer my current interpretation of the phrase “our Father” which is found in the version of the Lord’s Prayer most people are familiar with. The pieces were two songs - “You Are My Sunshine” and “Comin’ In On a Wing and a Prayer” - and the advice of Augustine to “pray as if everything depended on God and live as if everything depended on you.” The Lord’s Prayer was created in a time and served a purpose that we can know about only academically. But, properly understood and used it can serve us in providing identity, memory, and meaning. Though we do not have the understanding of God that their world-view allowed them to have, we can have an understanding of God that is as intimate as theirs.

That’s a brief summary of this week’s time in Ordinary Life.

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

Our podcast, “In Between,” can be accessed through the Ordinary Life web site.

If you would like to know how to make a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here for video instructions.

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 of today’s talk, use the audio player below.

To watch the video of today’s talk, use the YouTube link below.

WEEKLY PODCAST | In Between.139

Today’s podcast involves some singing, some laughing, some puppies, and, of course, some talking. If there is a takeaway, it is this:

We are descended from light. Because we share this common origin, we are also all interconnected. As such, we belong to one another.

As you know, we are on this kick about developing a new understanding of God, a big enough understanding that includes all of our beautiful differences - even our differences about God. These are just “small stories” that are trying to fit us into a much larger story, a cosmic story if you will. The cosmic story follows the same laws of nature no matter where we are in time and space whereas our God stories change from place to place. We might consider whether the stories we know enlarge our understanding of our cosmic origins or limit it.

We evolve just as our ideas about God do. The old ideas are not inauthentic, just iterations of our developing consciousness. How might we continue to evolve them?

SUNDAY LECTURE | Praying Naked

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

* * *

Summary of Ordinary Life for August 13, 2023

* * *

Dear Ones -

Registration for the day with Suzanne Stabile is now open. To register click here.

The experience is being called:

The Path Between Us:
The Enneagram and Relationships

She will be with us from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 30. She will also return for the Ordinary Life hour that Sunday.

If you are unfamiliar with the Enneagram, it is a personality typing system that is used by most spiritual directors to aid in spiritual growth and understanding of one’s Self.

I have asked Brooke Summers-Perry to come and use the Ordinary Life hour on Sunday, September 10 and do a good introduction to the Enneagram. You will want to be sure to attend this time. There is, of course, no charge for this time.

I called the time in Ordinary Life this week -

Praying Naked

I got the title from a story I heard one of my teachers tell decades ago. What I mean by the title is that in doing the religious/spiritual work we are attempting, there are likely some things - ideas, beliefs, etc. - that we need to remove and put down. There are also some practices that it will be helpful to take up.

This week was my way of introducing the teachings I will be offering based on and in response to what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer.” This prayer is one of the most familiar things about Christian rituals that most people think they know. My contention is that we do not know it - except in a superficial way. My hope for these teachings is that they equip us to make the journey into deeper awareness with hope, joy, and compassion. I close by reading the prayer translated into English from Aramaic, the language Jesus actually spoke. This translation is the work of Neil Douglas-Klotz who has devoted his life to the study of the prayer. You might want to use it as part of your daily spiritual practice.

That’s a brief summary of this week’s time in Ordinary Life.

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

Our podcast, “In Between,” can be accessed through the Ordinary Life web site.

If you would like to know how to make a contribution to Ordinary Life, click here for video instructions.

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.

To listen to or download the audio of today’s talk, use the player below.

To watch the video of today’s talk, use the YouTube link below.

WEEKLY PODCAST | In Between.138

This conversation starts out with my asking Bill if he’d ever bought about writing a book and whether we should write one together. Wouldn’t it be fitting, friends, for Bill, the consummate recommender of books, to write a book? I am sure he’s written tomes if we were to amass all of the documents prepared for Ordinary Life over the years!

So here is the statement of intent signed this 16th day of August (for you, the 17th, but we had to do some pre-contracting) in the year 2023: Holly and Bill will co-author a book.

There. I said it.

Here is a question to ponder: What keeps you moving, inspired, and growing while you wait for things to get better, what we’ve referred to as the not yet? What gives you a sense of presence? I am not kidding when I say one of those things is baseball. The emotional arc of a single baseball game is an exquisite experience that belongs only in those nine innings. And then you do it again the next day, for six months out of the year. I love it. Of course, books give both of us so much joy. Between poetry, history, fabulous fiction, spirituality, and magic trick instructions, reading is a pathway to presence and growth. It also helps us to comb our lives for the moments when we realized we had changed.

What delights you these days? What makes you present to change?