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Support Safire the Llama

Support Safire the Llama

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My friend Richard “Shining Thunder” Francis has been adopted by a llama (and, it seems, a lama). More on that below.

Richard is a former JW who has dedicated his life to an extraordinary calling of love and spirituality.

He has health problems of various kinds and, among other things, he is blind (Touchingly – to me – he refers to his body as “the donkey.”)

None of this has stopped him from writing several books, running a ministry and various radio shows, publishing the Lovelight Ezine, and sending out messages to the “Universal Love Digest.” I post these as blog entries for him – it’s a small way that I can support his work and show my gratitude for such books as Jehovah Goodbye: The New Theism of Love,
Jehovah lives in Brooklyn: Jehovah’s Witnesses as a model of Fundamentalism, Luminous Jewels of Love and Light, and Journey to the Center of the Soul: Mysticism Made Simple. After speaking for the first time, Richard sent me a couple of the books, and they helped me to organize my thoughts and feelings on a number of topics. You can buy the books, but Richard has also generously posted them as free downloadable ebooks.

I don’t agree with every little thing he says – but that’s ok. He has no interest in being a guru or controlling the thoughts and feelings of others.

The main site at Love Ministries is just one channel for his dedication to “The Way of Universal Love and the Ministry of Total Healing Spiritual, Emotional, and Physical.”

At Love Ministries, Inc. our goal is to help people. We do this genuinely to help other human beings solve problems and to live happier lives. Unlike many who call themselves “teachers” or even “masters,” we are not interested in ego-trips or in making lots of money. Our printed educational aids are distributed solely for what is roughly the cost of production and mailing, and we are not trying to make a profit or transform high spirituality into a mere business or a commodity. Please feel free to contact us with any issues that might relate to the heart, the body, the soul, the mind and anything else that might be of importance to you. We are here to be of service, for without service this world would have no Love.

Ok, so there’s the thing. Since he truly is only interested in love and service, Richard is always running everything on a shoestring.

If you like the site and the message, love donations are always very gratefully received.

If you’re not sure, you’ve got to read this post about Safire the llama/lama.

Call In to High Spirits Radio

Call In to High Spirits Radio

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My dear friend (and fellow exJW) Richard Shining Thunder Francis has a radio show called “High Spirits” and I’m sending out a call for people to call in with questions, since questions and calls are the center and theme of the show.

Our goal is to present a happy, positive view of spirituality, and to encourage its practical applications. To do this, each week, we will discuss metaphysics, psychology, philosophy, cults and odd beliefs, dogma, history, kabbalism (generic), gnosticism (generic), sufism (generic), and other fascinating forms of the Way of compassion. Love, or compassion will, of course, be a theme, and we shall look together into the bright mysteries of agapology (the psychology of Love). Take a break from your frenzied week. Have a warm cup of coffee or cold drink, sit back, and listen to the most important, and most captivating, subjects in the universe!

Listen to “High Spirits” Online
at 1530AM WCKY
Cincinnati
Sat 8 PM
Call in from 8-9 PM EST
Local: 749-1530
Out of area: 877-345-3779

You do not have to receive the station over radio to call. You can listen online, and you will be able to hear the show on the telephone as well. You can also help other people by making this call. Don’t worry; you will be on the air for only a few seconds to ask your question. Just have it ready to go and call 877-345-3779, after 8 pm (it’s free). You can ask about the “new age,” fundamentalism, religion, metaphysics, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, God, nature, cults, or anything related to any of these.

Teacher, author, psychospiritual advisor, life-design consultant, and practicing mystic, Richard’s point of view is centered on love mysticism. He is the founder of agapology, the science of love-psychology, spokesperson for the Universal Love Movement (not a religion, but a Way) which challenges society to live by the principles of compassion, acceptance, and tolerance. He is not a “guru.”

I called in about two weeks ago, and the discussion really helped me to refocus in a more positive direction.

His sites:

Love Ministries
Blog

Richard is one of the most lucid, giving, and compassionate people I’ve ever known.

He has written several books, many of which are available for download.

My favorite is Journey to the Center of the Soul: Mysticism Made Simple, but I first stumbled across his work while searching for good books on Jehovah’s Witnesses. The JW books are very helpful for understanding how and why the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses can be so psychologically and spiritually destructive. When I read these two books, everything that I had sensed and felt really clicked into place. His style is quite different from my own, and his way of framing things gave me a new kind of conceptual and emotional “niche” in a heart/mind space that had been empty. I’ve been recommending the JW books on my site for some time:

Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn – Richard S. T. Francis
An extremely helpful book for ex-JWs (and for those who love them) that succeeds in capturing the thought patterns, assumptions, mindset, destructive consequences, spiritual distortions, and psychosocial dynamics of the “organization.” A very readable narrative of such issues as personality dismantling, satanic projection, sense of uniqueness, persecution, conformity and masks, and censorship. “Thus, in cases I have witnessed personally, parents have totally rejected and turned their backs on wayward children, brothers have become the fiercest of enemies, and lovers are separated with a ferocity and mutual hatred. Every form of sentimentality is despised as a weakness when it comes to the question of loyalty to Jehovah’s organization. Every human being is disposable. …This is an underlying flaw in much of fundamentalism, including JWs: ideas and concepts are more sacred even than human life. It is due to this distortion that JWs refuse blood transfusions even to save the lives of their children–a teaching for which they have become monsterously notorious.” (p.73).

Jehovah Good-Bye: The New Theism of Love – Richard S. T. Francis
Ex-JW Francis moves from criticism to a constructive analysis of what he calls the “New Theist,” who is reconnecting to the agapic god of love and forgiveness. “The New Theist has arisen in specific response to the intellectual and spiritual starvation so often promoted by traditional religion. Far too often, religion, whose job it is to feed the masses, wrenches from their hands the tiniest morsels of substantial spiritual food, and tries to replace them with the non-nutritive ‘straw’ of organizationalism and dogma, doctrine and administration. Worse, some groups are monomaniacally obsessed with only money, and religion is only a front” (p.11). ” “The God of revealed by Jesus was no primitive anthropomorphism, no historical product of evolution from the proto-Jehovac images of the old god. This God did not dribble out forgiveness in parsimonious, unwilling, reticent microparticles; this God deluged and immersed his children in purest Love, and was eager and delighted to forgive. And according to grace, he did not forgive becuase of his children’s attitudes or behaviors; he forgave because of the quality of his love” (p. xix).

Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn Jehovah Goodbye: The New Theism of Love

Progressive Faith Bloggers Carnival 7

Progressive Faith Bloggers Carnival 7

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Progressive Faith Blog-Con 2006 Carnival

Welcome to the 7th Carnival of Progressive Faith Bloggers! Join us if you would like to participate in future carnivals. Your host next week is Pearlbear’s Blog. Contact Michelle directly with a "Carnival Post" email or submit your blog link and description to ProgFaithCarnival – at – Yahoo.com with "Carnival Link" in the title.

I was planning on making this more of a narrative post, but the topics this week were very wide-ranging. The round-up is more concise than descriptive. I encourage you to go read the posts. Please feel free to comment with additional post links. Without further ado, then:

 

Baraka at Truth and Beauty questions whether revulsion is the best response with a witty, sweet defense of piglets and love hounds. Sometimes even the lowliest of animals can hold the key to Heaven or an explanation of our connection to God.

Eternal Peace outlines a two-tiered Tonglen meditative practice in which one breathes in the pain of others and breathes out a sending of relief and joy – but it’s the second level of the practice that got my attention.

Connecting with the voice of the infinite in our lives is pondered – with the aid Paul Tillich – at Even the Devils Believe (see also the top ten list of ikons for theologians).

Daniel at Radical Torah is also thinking about the singular Voice which arises in each individual – in a post on the radical, yet grounded, subjectivity of Judaism.

On grounding (in relation to rock/stone in particular), see an interesting instruction on alter construction from the book of Exodus, and take a look at photographs of the patient stones of Glendalough at Hoarded Ordinaries.

Think Buddha considers a challenging question of the relative ease or difficulty of ethics in a Western context.

Planet Grenada muses on Sunni-Shia tensions and hopes during Muharram (the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar), and Another Country interprets Lent as a time to establish new habits for spiritual growth.

Radical Hapa considers race in the context of the delusion of national innocence, and No More Apples expands on what it would mean to have "more of those apples" now that innocence is gone.

Semitism.net reports on Prime Minister Olmert’s annexation of the Jordan Valley, and comments on its injustice.

Richard at Tikun Olam comments on a recent political statement that compared stem cell research to the Holocaust, Nazi torture science, and slavery.

Xpatriated Texan considers heating costs and the politics of Citgo oil from Venezuela. At Blue Texas, he posts on the "Kinky" stalking horse hypothesis, and at the Progressive Populist he proposes the interresponsibility of ourselves with one another as the foundation of progressive values. Tammany on the Hudsom notes the low level of ethical understanding exhibited by pleading ignorance to an obvious conflict of interest.

LA Mom points out that the Bush administration can’t have it both ways for UN inspectors at Guantanamo.

Mainstream Baptist reports on proposed Oklahoma state legislation for state distribution of funding to faith-based organizations, despite strong prohibitions in its constitution.

At Cross Left Jo posts ten things that technology can help coordinate between progressive organizations, and ScottPaeth reflects on lessons from Bonhoeffer.

The Corner posts on subverting hierarchies and exploring the interpretational acts of a network nodal mode of power, and Pearlbear’s Blog connects the dots for a new conspiracy theory of entertainment media control and command technology.

Father Jake Stops the World takes a look at spiritual shifts and financial questions at the Episcopal Diocese of Albany.

Boy in the Bands wonders about the terms under which a new church might be welcomed under the Universalist Unitarian umbrella.

Velveteen Rabbi responds to the New Reform Response to intermarriage by questioning whether welcoming conversions of non-Jewish spouses may evolve into pressure and an expectation of eventual identity shift – thus undermining community acceptance and respect of interfaith couples as they are.

At the Feminary, Episcopalian Stasi is rebuffed by an Anglican kissin’ cousin, but welcomed by rabbis.

In a post that (unfortunately) resonates with my own experience, Reverend Mommy narrates a humerous, humbling moment of self-realization in the classroom.

And last, Grateful Bear quotes the Sufi mystic Ibn al-Arabi. I am particularly fond of this:

My heart has become capable of every form:
It is a pasture for gazelles,
And a monastery for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols,
And the Ka’aba of the pilgrims,
And the tablets of the Torah,
And the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love:
Whatever path Love’s camel takes,
That is my religion and my faith.

Fox’s 95 Theses

Fox’s 95 Theses

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I first read the theologian-priest Matthew Fox as a graduate student in philosophical theology and ethics at the University of Iowa. He is perhaps one of the most controversial religious figures of our time. He’s a bit wacky in some ways (see techno-cosmic mass) but I tend to agree with much of what he says. My friend Grateful Bear recently discovered that Fox not only has his own blog, but that it includes a Luther-inspired “95 Theses” on it – in English and German!

In case you don’t know, Martin Luther nailed his own 95 Theses (don’t get it confused with “feces”) to the door of the Wittenberg Church on Oct. 31, 1517. The 95 Theses of Luther attacked papal abuses and the sale of indulgences by church officials – and argued for a return to the Gospel. It was a pivotal moment that led to divisions in the church – from the Protestant Reformations, to the Catholic counter-reformations.

“Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason–I do not accept the authority of popes and councils for they have contradicted each other–my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me. Amen.” – Luther, in Defence of his 95 Theses, April 18, 1521

Fox describes his version as “95 faith observations drawn from my 64 years of living and practicing religion and spirituality. I trust I am not alone in recognizing these truths. For me they represent a return to our origins, a return to the spirit and the teaching of Jesus and his prophetic ancestors.” Here are a few that I particularly like, but it is worthwhile to read and meditate on all of them – if nothing else, it will certainly help you focus your own belief-structure. My own view of authentic Christianity shares many traits with this. No – I am not an agnostic or an atheist. I just don’t believe in most of the standard doctrines and mythologies.

4. God the Punitive Father is not a God worth honoring but a false god and an idol that serves empire-builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead who is as much female and motherly as it is masculine and fatherly.

6. Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

7. Everyone is born a mystic and a lover who experiences the unity of things and all are called to keep this mystic or lover of life alive.

8. All are called to be prophets which is to interfere with injustice.

20. A preferential option for the poor, as found in the base community movement, is far closer to the teaching and spirit of Jesus than is a preferential option for the rich and powerful as found in, for example, Opus Dei.

23. Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honored as such.

27. Ideology is not theology and ideology endangers the faith because it replaces thinking with obedience, and distracts from the responsibility of theology to adapt the wisdom of the past to today’s needs. Instead of theology it demands loyalty oaths to the past.

33. The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”

36. Dancing, whose root meaning in many indigenous cultures is the same as breath or spirit, is a very ancient and appropriate form in which to pray.

38. A diversity of interpretation of the Jesus event and the Christ experience is altogether expected and welcomed as it was in the earliest days of the church.

40. The Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of working through participatory democracy in church structures and hierarchical modes of being can indeed interfere with the work of the Spirit.

54. The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition and never has been.

70. Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control or homosexuality.

Matthew Fox 95 Theses – or Articles of Faith for a Christianity for the Third Millennium

(Thank you thank you Grateful Bear!)