Exploration Schedule
Join us for a bi-weekly lunch discussion (12pm) of “The Universal Christ” (book) and “Another Name for Every Thing” (podcast) by Richard Rohr. You are welcome to request a copy of the book through us, or purchase a copy from your preferred bookseller. To play the podcast episodes, choose the link under each session for your preferred podcast platform.
Our gatherings will be held on the scheduled Thursday, in the chancel area of the sanctuary. We will have a table set up for eating lunch during our discussions. You are welcome to bring your own lunch or purchase a lunch from the Global Grace Cafe in the church social hall.
NOTE: You are welcome to listen to the podcast, or read the book, or simply to join us for discussion.
October 20
Session 1: Christ-Soaked World
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read (Click links if you don’t have the book yet): “Before We Begin” & Chapter 1: “Christ is Not Jesus’ Last Name”
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“God loves things by becoming them. God loves things by uniting with them, not by excluding them.” (p. 16)Q: What impact does this have on you, in this very moment?
November 3
Session 2: Radical Inclusivity
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 2: “Accepting that You Are Radically Accepted” & Chapter 3: “Revealed In Us—As Us”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “Non-Duality in. Relationships, Community, & Religion, Pt. 2”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“An incarnational worldview is the profound recognition of the presence of the divine in literally ‘every thing’ and ‘every one.’ It is key to mental and spiritual health, as well as to a kind of basic contentment and happiness.” (p. 18)Q: In your own life, how are you seeing or not seeing the divine in “everything”? How is this affecting your spiritual health, your basic contentment and happiness?
November 17
Session 3: From the Beginning
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 4: “Original Goodness”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “Hell, the Devil, & the Afterlife”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“Yet historically, the teaching of original sin started us off on the wrong foot — with a no instead of a yes, with a mistrust instead of a trust. We have spent centuries trying to solve the ‘problem’ that we’re told is at the heart of our humanity. But if you start with a problem, you tend to never get beyond that mindset… I have never met a truly compassionate or loving human being who did not have a foundational and even deep trust in the inherent goodness of human nature.” (p. 62-63)Q: How do you see your own sense of trust or mistrust of God or others affecting your capacity for compassion or love?
December 1
Session 4: Love Evolves
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 5: “Love is the Meaning” & Chapter 6: “A Sacred Wholeness”
Bonus Podcast Episodes: “Healing Division in a World that Others”: Apple Spotify Stitcher // “Parenting”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“Love is a paradox. It often involves making a clear decision, but at its heart, it is not a matter of mind or willpower, but a flow of energy willingly allowed and exchanged, without requiring payment in return.” (p. 71)Q: Where have you seen or experienced this type of love in your own life? What might the experience tall you about God?
December 15
Session 5: Respect, Wonder, & Reverence
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 7: “Going Somewhere Good,” Chapter 8: “Doing & Saying,” & Chapter 9: “Things At Their Depth”
Bonus Podcast Episodes: “The Practice of Awe and Wonder”: Apple Spotify Stitcher; “Miracles, Signs, & Wonders”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“Resurrection and renewal are, in fact, the universal and observable pattern of everything… ‘springtime,’ ‘regeneration,’ ‘healing,’ forgiveness,’ ‘life cycles,’ ‘darkness,’ and ‘light.’” (p. 99) … “Do not think I am talking about believing only what you can see with your eyes, or proposing mere materialism. I am talking about observing, touching, loving the physical, the material, the inspirited universe — all of its suffering state — as the necessary starting place for any healthy spirituality and any true development. Death and resurrection, not death or resurrection. This is indeed the depth of everything. To stay on the surface of anything is invariably to miss its message — even the surface meaning of our sinfulness.” (p. 113)Q: Where do you see the cycle of death and resurrection in your own life? What depth or insight has the experience shown you? Where might you want to go deeper?
January 5
Session 6: An Embodied Path
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 10: “The Feminine Incarnation” & Chapter 11: “This is My Body”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “Embodiment: An Incarnational Worldview”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“Mary is the Great Yes that humanity forever needs for Christ to be born into the world… If Christ and Jesus are the archetypes of what God is doing, Mary is the archetype of how to receive what God is doing and hand it on to others.” (p. 127)Q: How do we receive God in our own lives? How do we keep it to ourselves or hand it on to others?
January 19
Session 7: Nonviolent Atonement
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 12: “Why Did Jesus Die?” & Chapter 13: “It Can’t Be Carried Alone”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “Jesus, Incarnation, & the Christ Resurrection”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“As some of our saints have said in different ways, Jesus is not loyal to groups, to countries, to battles, to teams. Jesus is loyal only to suffering.” (p. 148) “God saves by loving and including, not by excluding or punishing” (p. 154)Q: Where are your personal loyalties? Where do you include or exclude? Where do you love or punish?
February 2
Session 8: Practice Resurrection
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 14: “The Resurrection Journey”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “Reframing the Great Commission”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“‘Resurrection’ is another word for change, but particularly positive change - which we tend to see only in the long run. In the short run, it often looks like death.” (p. 170)Q: What situations have you seen as a "death" in the short run and a resurrection in the long run? Where are you still waiting for the perspective of time to see the resurrection?
February 16
Session 9: Peter, Paul, & Mary (Minus Peter)
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 15: “Two Witnesses to Jesus and Christ”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “The Holy Spirit”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
“Spiritual knowing is an inner encounter and a calm inner knowing that we usually identify with ‘soul’ knowledge. We need this intimate inner knowing because we can't be left at the visual level or we will always think we can localize, limit, or capture God as a private possession or as something that can or must be ‘proven’ to others. This is no small point. If God is God, then the Divine Presence must necessarily be everywhere and universally accessible. If you can physically ‘touch’ God, it's easy to think God is just here and not there, mine but not yours." (p. 192)Q: Where in your life do you feel a "calm inner knowing" and where do you feel the need to "prove" to others?
March 2
Session 10: From Me to We
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 16: “Transformation & Contemplation”
Bonus Podcast Episode: “The Path of Great Suffering”: Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
”When we stop our calculating minds long enough to look critically at how we know, it is like putting a wide-angle, color lens into what used to be a small, black and white camera. We can begin to understand that the Christ Mystery is not something we need to prove or even can prove, but a broad field that we can recognize for ourselves when we see in a contemplative way, which often will seem more symbolic and intuitive than merely rational, a more nondual mystery than anything that offers us mere binary choices as a false shortcut to wisdom. What many have begun to see is that you need to have a nondualistic, non-angry, and nonargumentative mind to process the really big issues with any depth or honesty, and most of us have not been effectively taught how to do that in practice. We were largely taught what to believe instead of how to believe." (p. 206)Q: Where are you in need of more depth and honesty in the way you confront an issue or problem? How might the Christ Mystery enable you to see the issue with a more nondualist or holistic perspective? What spiritual practices might help to cultivate this type of worldview for you?
March 16
Session 11: Feast On Your Life
Listen to Episode (Choose One): Apple Spotify Stitcher
Read: Chapter 17 “Beyond Mere Theology: Two Practices”, Epilogue & Afterword
Bonus Podcast Episode: “Spiritual Practice”: Apple Spotify Stitcher; “Richard Rohr & James Finley on Turning to the Mystics": Apple Spotify Stitcher
Journaling/Reflection Prompt:
"Contemplation allows us to see things in their wholeness, and thus with respect (remember re-spect means to see a second time). Until Richard recognizes and somehow compensates for his prejudicial way of seeing the moment, all Richard will tend to see is his own emotional life and agenda in every new situation. This is the essential lesson of Contemplation 101, but it does not feel much like ‘prayer’ to the average person, which is probably why many give up too soon and frankly never truly meet the other - much less the Other. They just keep meeting themselves over and over again." (p. 215)Q: Where in your life are you looping back over and over again, meeting your "own emotional life and agenda" in every new situation?