If the church were Christian

Quaker pastor Philip Gulley suggests ten standards for rediscovering the values of Jesus. He writes that, if the church were Christian:

• Jesus would be a model for living, not an object of worship
• affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness
• reconciliation would be valued over judgment
• gracious behavior would be more important than right belief
• inviting questions would be more important than supplying answers
• encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity
• meeting needs would be more important than maintaining institutions
• peace would be more important than power
• it would care more about love and less about sex
• this life would be more important than the afterlife

Gulley's book looks like a must-read to me. HT to Richard Rohr.

René Girard's mimetic theory

A very interesting theory that says we learn to desire by seeing what others desire and that this inevitably leads to conflict. More here, here, here, and here.

Love is of God

Authentic recovery

From Richard Rohr's book Just This:

The real gift is to be happy and content ... when we can see and accept and say that every single act of creation is “just this” and thus allow it to work its wonder on us. This is the ultimate and real recovery movement. Authentic recovery is not actually about mere sobriety as much as it is about simple and ever-deeper connection with what is. Deep connection is our goal, and it frees us from all loneliness, separateness, and boredom, and is far beyond just stopping the addictive behavior. 

Jesus' teaching on prayer

From Matthew 6:5-8 comes Jesus' explicit teaching on prayer:

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

In The Naked Now (via this link), Richard Rohr speaks to how we may be missing the import of this:

When we emphasize [traditional] public, verbal, and social prayer forms, along with group rituals, while not giving people any inner experience of their own inner aliveness (the “Indwelling Spirit”), it tends to keep religion on the level of a social contract; this is often what we call cultural Christianity or civil religion. ... Social and public prayers hold groups and religions together, but they do not necessarily transform people at any deep level. In fact, group certitude and solidarity often becomes a substitute for any real journey of our own. ...

Prayer too easily became an attempt to change God and aggrandize ourselves instead of what it was meant to be – an interior practice to change the one who is praying, which will always happen if we stand calmly before this uncanny and utterly safe Presence, allowing the Divine Gaze to invade and heal our unconscious, the place where 95 percent of our motivations and reactions come from. All we can really do is return the gaze.

Jesus does give his disciples a specific verbal prayer: The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). After the jump, John Piper breaks down the specific asks.

Deepening Your Prayer Life

Love this from Carl McColman ... five ways you can deepen your personal prayer life:

1. Read the Bible every day (Lectio Divina). Lectio Divina is different from “Bible Study” — it’s a slow, meditative way of reading the Bible, to allow the words to speak to your heart in a quiet and prayerful way. You can learn more about it here. 
2. Pray a Psalm every day. A long term goal for monastic oblates and other serious pray-ers is to pray all or part of the Daily Office. But for beginners that may seem daunting. A gentler way to start: pray one Psalm each day. Most can be prayed in about 2 minutes, so it’s not a huge time commitment — but it’s a great way to anchor your daily prayer life. 
3. Try to find (and serve) God through others, every day. Prayer is more than just saying prayers! The purpose of prayer is to foster intimacy with God, and scripture reminds us that when we serve others, we serve Christ. So whether it’s a work of mercy like feeding the homeless, or simply a good deed like helping an elderly lady carry her groceries to the bus stop, look for ways to be kind to others — and see such acts as embodied prayers. 
4. Take time to reflect on a spiritual truth, every day. Traditionally this is called “mental prayer” or “meditation” but you don’t need the fancy labels to enjoy this rich way of praying. St. Luke reminds us of how Mary would ponder things in her heart in regard to Jesus. We can do the same thing — and it’s prayer. So take some time to ponder a spiritual truth: God is love; God is merciful; God forgives; God wants us to love our neighbors, and so forth. But don’t just think pious thoughts — keep in mind that such times of reflection nourish us because God is always present. 
5. Spend some time in silence every day. Finally comes the crown of daily prayer: silent prayer, or contemplation. This, at heart, is simply a wordless gaze of love into the unseen face of God. Catholics love this kind of silence in an adoration chapel, but it can be just as prayerful (and meaningful) in your living room, or your garden, or any other quiet, undistracted place.

Principles behind the 12 steps

An interesting way to look at the 12 steps from SoberRecovery:

1. Honesty — The operative principle behind step one is honesty. If you cannot get honest about the scope of your problem, and honest about a sincere effort to resolve it, you will not succeed in your recovery. How about a definition of honesty as "the absence of the intention to deceive"? Why do we try to fool ourselves and others? 
2. Hope — In order to engage in a course of addiction recovery, we must have hope of success. If there is no hope, why try? Perhaps you have failed on our own, so how about enlisting some help? A way to find hope is to realize that recovery is not a question of your ability. After all, there are millions in recovery. Your hope of recovery is not through ability, but through persistence and application. 
3. Faith — This step represents a stage of action where you begin to employ the recovery skills being learned. You can seek out help with the skills, but it is also necessary to utilize them on your own. Your job is to become willing to do the right thing. A simple way to view the 'next right thing' is to not engage in your old behavior. Have faith that your recovery will work.