If you want to be a real help to your temple/church/
Buddhist sangha first light the fire
of love/tolerance/understanding in yourself
so you can inspire others to do the same.
Otherwise, no matter how beautiful the edifice
it will be a false temple/church/sangha.
If you are not on fire for God
it is because your image of God is old school –
God is transcendent/detached from human life.
The theory of evolution forces us
into a new image of God as immanent –
God arises from within everything.
Teilhard/Merton/Panikkar/Griffiths
all call for inner renewal as the key to living Christ
in the 21st century. These four deceased
but alive mystics can be our guides
for living in an evolutionary world.
Religion is falsely thought of as contentment –
an idealistic escape from the stresses of harsh reality.
However, religious discontent is synonymous
with spiritual renewal – discontent that the world
is not like God’s dream
of peace and justice for all.
Prophetic religion is not about certainty and security.
Earthly attachments to comfort/porn/money
control the soul/end the spirit’s freedom/
cut us off from God.
As we value and pursue foolish things,
foolish fears, like losing our comfort, result.
“Conversion” according to Bernard Lonergan
is the experience by which one becomes
an “authentic human being.”
And Lonergan affirmed conversion as holistic:
it involves the whole person in all our dimensions:
intellectual – loving God with our mind
ethical – loving God with our body
and religious – loving God with our heart on fire.
Intelligent Christian Spirituality 