This is so extraordinarily beautiful. It's also, I can't help but comment, a great example in my opinion of how a very fundamental gospel value can be pointed out, talked about, without using explicitly religious language.

Yes, the gospel truth without the gospel terminology.

. . . to let ourselves be seen - deeply seen, vulnerably seen . . .

       . . . to love with all our hearts, even if there is no guarantee . . .

           . . .  to practise gratitude and joy . . .

                   . . . to believe that we are enough . . .

Anyone got a banana nut muffin?

True. But we must do more than tell people to "snap out of it...because the scriptures say so..and God loves you" and what I mean by that is, not that what they say is wrong, but people's low sense of self worth is often so ingrained for such a long time, to simply tell them to stop feeling that way is often futile...and so to say that just makes a person feel even less understood...if they feel no love from others, neither for themselves, they are not likely to feel loved by God either, in my observation. We need to show them love that is tangable, so that they feel loved, and are able to love themselves and others..and feel open to God's love...or else the words are just empty words to them.

And what about people who are legitimately ashamed of some of their past behaviour (eg. I can think of lots of instances where I could have done things differently but didn't...I could have been less selfish, I could have tried harder, I could have been kinder, more generous etc...so I understand the dliema even though I try to forgive myself. I grew up in a home where there was no good enough and this was a barrier for my self esteem...I never measured up in the eyes of those who loved me, and there was very little forgiveness)...sometimes people really do behave poorly, really could have done better, and have regrets...and perhaps their  existing  sense low self worth contributed to their poor choices...how do we help them (or ourselves) salvage their true worth so they have self respect...without that turning into false pride that our secular society praises? There is also a paradox in the Bible sometimes--if we take certain scriptures literally-- between the total condemnation and punishment for sin, and the total expectation of forgiveness. I know I struggle with that on my faith journey...because the Bible seems to teach that everyone is loved, yet noone deserves it...and in other places it teaches "do not be unevenly yoked, and have nothing to do with the whoremongerers, the drunkards, etc., etc, etc. Honestly, it teaches contradictory things, or at least appears to (which is why I want to understand the proper original context, and all the changes that have been made to it and why,not just the western version and teaching we have now)...the truth is, someone with low self esteem is less likely to know how to accept grace. I brought this up in another thread but it didn't get a response. I am, these days, leaning toward a more universalist view of God who loves everyone, and everyone is worthy whether they feel worthy or not...because I can't invision a God who is less forgiving than I am capable of being, or a loving God who holds a grudge, when we are commanded not to...that just doesn't make sense....I might make another thread about it though because it's bound to stray from the OP.

Somegal - come over to the Room for All.  I have raisin bran muffins.  Will they do?

Thinking more about this beautiful message.  I don't need anyone to analysis it for me.  She did an excellent job conveying her message.   The 'dull the pain and dull everything'.   I think this happens to everyone to a greater or lesser degree.  We ignor the hurt. We turn off the hurt.  We run, and run, and run.   Or we push our bodies to exercise.  Or we (this is my escape) play one game of Solitaire after another until another hour is used up.  Or we (someone close to me) become obsessive/compulsive - paying more attention to our 'routines' than to why we are doing them.   Or we lay down on the couch and turn on the TV and turn off the world around us.   And we miss out - we lay there on the couch while our children are growing up around us.   We shut off; and we shut off the good with the bad, and we are dead inside.  

But we are born in the image of God.  Not perfect in the world's sight  (my granddaughter had a deformed ear, I was born nearsighted and tone deaf), but perfect in our imperfection - not a china doll, but a human being to be loved and cherished not because we are perfect, not in spite of our imperfection, but because that is who we are.   

That's what I got out of this today.  Others probably got a somewhat different message.  And when I listen to it next week, I will probably get something more or different - I expect so.

Can you imagine someone clinging to an old ideal as conservatism ... admitting that it might have been wrong?

Busting out of that situation would be wrong in the institutional sense! Omi Gaw' dime glad I'm a fringe person (coin)  even tho' it made my family hate me ... for being different and searching for what's ellusive to those in the box ...

And thus the daemons RIP'el across space, as they can't see themselves as wealth and power ... that's descrypt ...

It is difficult to define nothing and infinite ... so the rich and powerful pude eM in the Tome ... that's the word and both the Romans and Judean sons would not except anything beyond their norm ... you did know Judain referred to Ju'pi'd'ur as the largest around ... not maybe the brightest ... but one has to live by imposed roué that few question! Afraid to goth 'ere like thos mon quis in a circe ... of excluded sensations ... not a tho'Tae ...

Thought E's latent to living people that are tough ...

Here is an example of control that she speaks of.  Of course it was a value from the beginning of human history.  If one studies anthropology one discovers this has been a religious value.  It gets actualized in many ways.  The hebrew tradition speaks of it, this sunday the 2 Kings 5:1-14 passage is about this - a upper class man is forced to become vulnerable which leads to his healing.  AS we proceed history this "value' gets told in new ways. Again this sunday the mark passage is about this value. 

The point made is we can see this in the gospel and it can be learned there.  But it is not the only place it can be learned.  The other point is an idea from religion gets secularized and we can trace that idea until it now is not always seen as a gospel value.  That is good.  However for those of us for whom church matters we can make the connection with those who are part of our community.  We can make connections with this video and what the text is for this sunday.  It is a reinforcing of this insight of vulneraliblity. 

The theological connection can be made - religion is given as a formation of character. What this religion as an emotion gets a human construction.  The idea of the vulnerablity of God can be a connecting trope.  Of course, there are religions that are evil and we see their connecting trope is a God who controls and is not at heart vulnerable ( the supernatural theism is an example) thus control is the dogma - accept this or you are not worthy.  The panentheistic model begins with you are worthy by nature and the lure of God is to value up worthiness, and to address those things that create shame so we overcome it.  The lure of God begins in both vulnerablity and worth.

You're too smart to believe in a literal Adam, I'd bet.

"The lure of God begins in both vulnerablity and worth."

Ok - yes short hand.   Here is a longer piece. 

If there is Love Supreme within experience and can be felt, and if that Love Supreme has an agenda of love, compassion and justice, that love is to be felt.  It may orginate in awe, the sense we all have in the experience of something more, watching the sunset, experiencing a piece of music that makes us stop in our tracks, lifting a new born baby, the moment we see our beloved and connect, and feel a rush of emotion, watching our grandson make that play in hockey.  What that awe is is in some sense a mystery; poetry and music and art and even some forms of religous experience, give us hints.  This love is in every moment, connects us, ties us together, pushes us on.  It is a lure to deeper connecting, if you will, a tease that calls us to compassion.  One of the ways we speak of, and experience,  this Love Supreme is as worth, calling the best out of us, affirming us as worthy of love.  Another way that experience comes to us is in vulnerabilty, when we open ourselves, in a moment of solitude, to a hint, that we share common experience.  And that Love Supreme is also vulnerable to us, open to us, feeling us, responding to us.  Thus when we know our vulnerablity and that deep down we are worthy because we are connected, to Love Supreme and to others.  And sometimes that call to love is only experienced in aesthetic ways, and within the intimate relating we have.  We don't have to name it, but it is there as the connecting of love in all experience.  And it is good enough for a moment, and for some, not to name it, but to feel the fact of being loved and connected.

Of course in the area of marketing all liberal and some evangelicals have to overcome the voices presented in the media - the conservative right/fundalmentalists.  Marketing is done by small groups - face to face - because for the most part ideas are not sound bits.

There are voices out there in the media who do, out of a process perspective and other progressive ideas, attempt to deal with ideas.  They too face a problem.  For example Doug Todd ( you an follow him http://blogs.vancouversun.com/category/staff/life/spirituality/the-search/) gets attacked by atheists and fundamentalists for his thoughtful reconstruction of faith. But I think chansen would have the same problem with him as he does with me.  Many who react negatively actually do not engage the ideas but argue out of their preconceived ideas, and/or the ideas presented do not fit with the ideas they hold as this must be the defination of religion or belief. 

Here is the basic problem:  "The best I can get out of your explanations is that you're really impressed by nature and art and beauty, and that you feel a connection to all of it.  Join the club.  That doesn't makes religious - it makes you human.  In fact, you sound a bit like a drunk atheist.  At least you seem to think you're hearing voices, so you have the start of a religious belief."  These sentences indicate a missing of the points.  For example the anthropolical claim that religion is what is what creates culture ( C Geertz) and culture makes us human (C Geetrz).  There is both false and true religion and religion evolves. Now there is in the history of ideas religious doctrines which are the attempts to make concrete this idea:Religon is the art and the theory of humanity, so far as it depends on the person themselves and on what is permanent in the nature of things.  So religions have ritual, doctrine,( rationalising) beilef which change over time.

But why the heaing of voices comment?  What are the obscure words?  Love.  Poertry.  Experience.  Awe?  Transcendence?All theology is mythic/poetic.  This does not mean it is non rational or non empirical.  It begins with the idea that to be human is to experience some sense of awe.  That is a given or as you say is to be human ( which I agree with).  To be human is to experience some sense of a moment of transcendence, as sense of something beyond us, which can be said only poetically - there is the love of the other that creates in us a sense of worth, we feel in out body the love that comes from the other - we connect to be lovers in dangerous times.  Or as the novel put ( EM Forrester) only connect as that which makes us human - connecting at the most initmate and self transcending way - that changes us interanlly and creates our characte which determines how we will live.

I don't hear voices, I feel connections with the world and individuals.  This is true of us all.  Then comes puting into words that feeling.

Yes such a theology does challange fundamentalism and literal ( the litrallism of an atheist who contiuues to reduce christianity to some literal snake, and some literal garden and some adam) but it is within the evolving history of Judaism and Christianity.  Both have changed over time but what is constant is there is some Love Supreme who works in the world calling us to the common good, of justice, peace, and compassion.  And the nature of that Love Supreme is compassion and relational.  And that Love Supreme is influenced by this relationality, that is effected and affecting by what is and is constant in always offering in each moment the possiblity of more beauty.  This idea can be traced through history, but each attempt to state it is always incomplete and time bound, context bound. Each generation finds new words to state this basic understanding of the idea that we are called to connect for the sake of the common good, and for our own sakes.  We find new words to express this belief.  And we are back to it is good enough for a start, and it does not come in sound bits, but only in engagement.  And some of that engagement is trying to put into words, through dance, music, poetry and fiction and art, and science hints of this mystery which is at the heart of the universe and has a stake on how we weave our lives, and depends on that weaving.   Note what is being said is metaphor and metaphors are our best aproximatization of what is real.

Can the world survive without sum form of Ideal-ism ... a belief fore moving on? That primal power ah ... like Webster defines ID ...?

Make those enthralled with da Tome as unconscious mind draw something from IT as outside theID ... Eris of dissonance ... the chaos of word extracted from silent tho'T?

Then what if you don't believe in the soul of God which isn't ... or according to St Nick of Cusa ... lives somewhere else ... des other 's IDe! Dark hue Meris ... or just bloody phun ... ah something to amuse the hier powers ... heiros gammas? That's sacred ah ... like "X" a beginning ... for another round ... similar to a warped song ... wadis dimension as th' pithys IDe ... of de vassal ...

What,

Berserks poken in tongues ...?

No human phenomenon in this global age is more controversial or confusing than religion. But two things are clear: secular prophecies to the contrary, religion is not going away. And despite the hopes of certain nostalgic believers, religion will not regain, at least in the West, the social ascendancy it once enjoyed.

We are all outsiders. All of us, no matter what we believe, stand outside traditions to which the vast majority of other human beings belong. The lesson to draw from this inescapable fact of the human condition is the need for a profound humility about one's own beliefs, especially when they are the kinds of beliefs that one cannot fully test in the company of others. In "The Predicament of Belief," these facts compel us to call for a "religious minimalism" across the world's traditions. For example, those whose religious experiences and values give rise to inescapably Christian convictions become Christian minimalists when they learn to hold their beliefs with humility and a certain lightness of touch.
We suggest that the humility of religious minimalism is the right stance for everyone, believers and non-believers alike, to adopt -- especially in an age in which the rich plurality of human beliefs has never been more evident, more exciting... or more dangerous.
 

Well, MC, if you want all you get, then you get all you want.

LBM,

Grand piece from that dark sea of de soul thing ... somewhat mystical ... few can find IT ...

In it's humble form went subliminal for authoritarian types didn't like IT ... soud on de Mira ...

It's one thing to avoid another's emotional manipulation to "blame" and "shame" us - it's far,far, harder to deal with the shame we own ourselves.........

It's our sense of shame, rather than the shame and blame cast on us by others, that causes us the most pain, IMO.

Try this as an experiment.

The next time you are in conflict with someone and your feelings  are hurt -  instead of just "blaming" them and justifying yourself (which is our usual response), go further - ask yourself is what's really upsetting you that they've triggered one of your "shame" areas?

"I'm not .................  enough?"  

Whatever that "blank" is, it's a clue to your own sense of shame.

A word about empathy, vulnerability and self worth.

These work best when  shared in relationship.

In my closest relationships I've risked my vulnerability with the other - and they have reciprocated by sharing their vulnerability with me. We know and support each other in our areas of shame, doubt and imperfections.

From my own experience, to find a soul mate, requires nothing less...........

What I was saying Arminius is that people should be content and thankful for whatever they get in life rather than complaining and being bitter about that which they haven't received or been able to achieve.

That is what you generally hear from the satisfied;

Just before they do the divers thing in de moor ... awesome spectre for dem below!

Yet hoo is really aware among the un-needy portions?

Hey hey, we agree, latte for you.

Very true. When saying such things we should all realize that people are sick and dying who do not have the very basics. Would any of us be happy with that? How dare we say they should be happy with what they have, as we live in relative comfort....internet access and all! Let them eat cake?

Kimmio,

Those that are insensitive to the poor and oppressed?

IOZeus called em hard-shuols ... stones with which to build a temple of Tome ... and someone hinted at tearing it down to build something better ...

They be well-bred in the next flip ... that's a kin to reversion or even an eccos in vast space of the indeterminate and uncertifiable state of God ... that's all0there-is tuit!

Alas in the quantum creation some become more hard-shelled and others and go thro' the mille many times before dah phloer'n on the threshold ... That's Dae Goan in old scrypt ... verily dark ... people don't like dark as they fear androgyny ... being tucked under a Ka Babbage Lief! That's how the story goes ... one page at a time?