ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life
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Summary for March 1, 2020
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Dear Folks -
For those of you in the Houston area, I want to call to your attention that this Thursday evening, as part of St. Paul’s Chamber Music Society’s Lenten series, the award winning ensemble, “Eya,” will be presenting a program of music that follows the routes of the Camino de Santiago. This will be at 7:30 in the sanctuary. At 6:30 in the chapel I will be presenting a preconcert lecture, “On Being a Pilgrim.” I hope you can attend both of these.
This week in Ordinary Life I began what will be a series of talks. I titled this introductory one -
Learning to Pray the Four Immeasurables of Love
It is an urgent matter that we each become what is right about the world. The test of true spirituality is compassion. We are immersed in a culture of such dualism and individualism that compassion is being pushed aside. G. K. Chesterton was once asked to write for the newspaper where he worked in London an essay about “what is wrong with the world?” His essay consisted of two words - “I am.” In this talk I read the entirety of “The Charter for Compassion”. Compassion is the path of enlightenment and is indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community. We can live into this life by learning to pray the four immeasurables of love. I first learned of these in 1973 from psychologist and Buddhist monk, Jack Kornfield. Though they are all listed in this talk, the focus is on the first - loving-kindness. I give what I believe is some specific and practical advice about how to take this teaching into your daily life.
That is a brief summary of the talk offered in Ordinary Life. The audio version contains all the asides and ad libs.
You can read or download the text from which I spoke, view the presentation slides, listen to the audio of the talk and/or watch the video of the talk using the links below.
If you are reading this, I want you to know how grateful I am for and to 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 listen to or download the audio version of the talk, use the link below.