SUNDAY LECTURE | Going Out While Staying Within

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

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Summary of Ordinary Life for December 12, 2021

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Dear Ones -

The Ordinary Life Christmas party is this Friday night from six p.m. until - Complete details, including a map, are on the Ordinary Life website. Click here. https://www.ordinarylife.org/events

I began our time together in Ordinary Life this week by showing a “Christmas card” sent out by a member of the House of Representatives. It shows him and his family posed in front of a Christmas tree with each member of this seven member family holding an automatic weapon. I believe that we need to be profoundly concerned about Christian nationalism, the power of authoritarianism, the threat of democratic collapse and the role religious groups play in all of this. We need to return to the ancient ides of working together for the common good. All the living religious traditions teach that we cannot separate our love for God from our love for our brothers and sisters. How did we lose a sense of the importance and transformative power of this teaching? To offer one biblical perspective I return to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. It is about how the ancient religious divisions in the human family can be overcome with a new human consciousness that Jesus taught and demonstrated. We are to go beyond human boundaries and prejudices. We do this not by having faith in Jesus but, rather, having the faith of Jesus. I called the time -

Going Out While Staying Within

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

You can find the text I had in front of me, the presentation slides and the audio version of the talk using the links below.

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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 down the presentation slides, click here.

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