Celtic Advent Blends Cultures
September 3, 2008
Celtic Advent in the pre Nicene church, early Christianity that pre-dates the Nicene Creed, the roadmap of what Christians, Catholic and Protestants believe. was very different than what we celebrate in the modern time. First Celtic Christianity participated and flourished in this period right up though the middle ages and had its own unique way of celebrating the season of Celtic Advent.
The Celtic Church was given this name to describe the period before the missionaries arrived. St. Patrick a famous saint arose out of the Celtic Christianity era for Ireland Wales and Scotland. He was a British missionary, maybe the most famous of all the Saints to rise out of this time approximately the 5th century. Although, from a historical perspective ironic, Ireland was evangelized and converted by the British Missionaries of which St. Patrick was a participant.
Meditation For Children
September 2, 2008
All parents and educators know how open children can be to new learning and how receptive when interested. We also know how responsible we must be with respect to what we teach our children and allow them to absorb. When it comes to the values of meditation, we can be put off by the developmental facts of the limited attention span of young children, or their difficulty sitting still for more than a minute at a time. These characteristics often prevent us from seeing the wider potential of introducing a learning process to the young so that they can move, step by step, into a fuller comprehension of what spiritual centering is all about.
We can do this, even with young children, in a variety of ways. We can sit with them with eyes closed, asking them to place their hands over their hearts and to think about love or God. These are abstract concepts, and yet children know the words if the words are used by their parents with feeling and sincerity. They know the feeling of the words - the emotional state behind the words. This is true to the extent that parents and other adults have a commitment to living a spiritually centered life, and choose to speak of it in a language that can resonate with children as well.
Buddhist Meditation
September 2, 2008
While most religions in the world have some form of meditation as a core practice (be it Christian monasticism or Islamic daily prayer), none have made it so central a tenet as Buddhism has. As such, there are many variations in the practice and goals of meditation within Buddhism. This article therefore is necessarily an overview and brief introduction to the wide range of Buddhist meditation.
Buddhism has taught meditation to its adherents since the 5th century BC. Gautama Buddha (or simply “the Buddha”, meaning “he who has achieved enlightenment”), the founder of the religion and its supreme teacher sought escape from this world and found it in meditation. Since then, this has been passed on to his followers.
What Happens When a Fundamentalist Quits?
September 1, 2008
In the holiday movie, White Christmas, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are faced with the terrible downturn in fortunes experienced by their former commanding officer from the European theater in World War II. The general, a well beloved man, has retired after the war to a small inn located in Vermont. Through an involved plot, the famous singing and dancing duo of Wallace and Davis find themselves at the inn just prior to Christmas. There has been no snow, hence no winter time visitors. After realizing that their former commander is now commanding a declining inn, Wallace and Davis (Bing and Danny) go into salvation mode.
The plan they have involves keeping the general away from his favorite television program, which has national syndication. Danny really “hams it up,” and it takes some doing, but he succeeds in keeping the general away from the set long enough for Wallace (Bing) to make an appeal on a popular show for all of the men under the general’s command in the war to converge at the inn for a production that he and Davis (Danny) have staged. His appeal is musical. He sings this song: “What do you do with a general when he stops being a general? What do you do with general unemployed?” Of course, all of the men bite. Hundreds show up. It snows. Bing and Danny both get the perspective girls, and all is happy. I know the story well. My wife has made me watch it every year for the past thirty-one years.