Reignite

 

 

I'm always a bit suspicious of those people who have SOMETHING WISE to say right in the midst of a historical event. Despite my job being, at times, to say something wise I don't always feel up to it, and I want to hide away in my bed and just be a person rather than one of those WISE PEOPLE who have clever opinions.  Nevertheless I've been reflecting this week on the Trump victory in the States and what it means. What it means for the future, I cannot say, but it is obviously terrifying for the world. My heart goes out especially to trans people in the States as well as the Palestinian people. But I've been thinking about those campaigns and how they landed. Kamala Harris' campaign, and particularly the National Convention which had this message of JOY, seemed at the time to me deeply inappropriate against the backdrop of a genocide. I was listening to a This American Life episode following a Palestinian American at that convention, and how the leadership was tryi...

 

 

 

 

It is important to point out from time to time what difference the practice of faith can make in a person's life. Progressive religious people like myself can sometimes be reluctant to do this because we don't want to seem like we're pushing a hard sell on someone, or promising that all of life's problems can be magically solved by joining a religion or signing up to something. Any wise and reflective person knows that life's problems are always there and we're always learning how to live life well. There are no shortcuts in the art of living. There are no simple solutions. But to leave it at that sells ourselves short. The practice of faith does make a difference. It does make give us deeper joy, peace, and love in life, if we truly practice it. This doesn't mean, in itself, signing up to a particular religion or just believing in something you didn't believe before. It means practising something: doing something day after day, week after week that ope...

The older I get (I'm now 42) the more I find myself convinced of the need for faith that is not just progressive/liberal but also contemplative. And the more frustrated I find myself at the lack of communities that truly are both progressive and contemplative.  Progressive Christianity without a spiritual contemplative heart tends to get stuck in its own head (or in more colourful language, perhaps stuck up its own arse). It tends to be quite... boring, quite stuck, very heady and intellectual. People just say the same thing again and again and again. It defines itself only in negative terms: "we're not homophobic," "we don't believe in taking the Bible literally." But it finds very little to say positively. If it says anything beyond negatives it can just drop into banalities, dropping Christian language completely and talking about gardening or knitting or things like that. Not that I have anything against gardening or knitting. It's just at that p...

Here is a short video series I've been working on for a few month, as I way to think about how to know and experience the reality of God in personal spiritual practice, through the symbol of the five senses.  How to smell God How to hear God How to see God How to touch God How to taste God

 

I feel that a lot of the "stuckness" we're in around the climate comes from a disconnection from our bodies and our feelings. As people, and as a society, we're in a state of denial and disconnection from the truth we feel with our bodies.  That's one reason why I've set up Cardiff Climate Cafe, as space to allow us to be with feelings, and to know we're not alone in those feelings. We have each other and our feelings are real, whatever they are. I want folks to support each other as a way to deal with the work we have to do, and to help create the emotional-level shift that we need in society. I'm going to be running this once a month for the next four months, starting 11am Saturday 27th January 2024, at the Cwtch space by the bar, Chapter Arts Centre. Please come by! Are you feeling isolated? Angry? Numb? Burnt out? Despairing? Determined? Depressed? Guilty? The climate café is a free space to gather and share our feelings in a non-judgmental atmosph...