Keep Digging
2007-04-26 18:43:00
A man began to sink a well, but having dug he could not find the least trace of water, so he selected another place. There he dug deeper, but even then he could not find any water. So again he selected another spot and dug, but it was also of no avail. At last in utter disgust he gave up the task altogether. Without shifting the site from place to place, he would surely have been successful.
God's Wrath
2007-04-19 16:24:00
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God's wrath."
John 3:36
The Gospel of John is not a historical account of Jesus' life and teachings, as if it was a newspaper report. Instead, it is an essay giving the beliefs of a community of Christians some sixty-plus years after Jesus' death. In John, the figure of Jesus becomes a
Welcome To You Google Users!
2007-04-16 16:21:00
A big day for ChristianMystics.com, thanks to Google
. Our site, which had been on Google for years, vanished from the web for a short time. When ChristianMystics.com came back, we were nowhere to be found on Google. After six months of trying to get re-listed, this morning the site showed up under a search for "Christian mystics" at number one!
So, if you are one of those who just discovered us
Read more: Welcome
Astonishing Sounds
2007-04-15 05:58:00
Give yourself a moment. Listen. I am a huge fan of Blind Boys of Alabama, and this pairing with the astonishing voice and spirit of Ben Harper will touch you. I guarantee.
I hope you enjoy it.
Blessings,
Brian
Tags: Ben Harper, Blind Boys of Alabama, gospel, christian, mystic
Read more: Sounds
Finally!
2007-04-01 04:06:00
I finally finished a short manuscript I've been working on regarding Christian Mystics and the New Testament and am about to ship it off to my agent. There are two more books planned, much more involved, and I hope to get started on one of them immediately.
Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.
Best,
Brian
Read more: Finally
Which God and Jesus?
2007-03-26 16:54:00
For much of the Bible, the worst of human traits have been projected to God -- petty jealousy, nationalism, violence, revenge, murder, insecurity, eternal punishment and more. Think of these qualities more or less embodied or solidified into the Old Man on the Throne, a cosmic king who's whims and insecurities are more Shakespeare than spiritual.
When you read atheist or smug, dismissive
Read more: Jesus
Let the Dead Bury the Dead
2007-03-22 16:32:00
When they sat down to write their accounts, Matthew and Luke, it seems, each had before them a copy of what has been called "Q", a document which contained various sayings of Jesus. An example of this kind of a collection -- one without narrative -- can be found in the Gospel of Thomas. In addition, both people had an early version of Mark and, we can detect, various bits and pieces which
The Tomb of Jesus?
2007-03-04 18:27:00
Unless you've had your head buried in the sand, you already know about the controversy and debate going on over the tv special which attempts to show that the tomb of Jesus
and his family has been located. And by family, we mean not only his mother and brothers, but also his alleged wife, Mary Magdalene, and a son.
All of this reminds me of an incident about 30 years ago when I was attending
The Fox and the Pearl
2007-02-02 20:35:00
A few tidbits today. The first is an invitation to visit the main site and read The Golden Key to Prayer by Emmet Fox. It's a wonderful approach to integrating prayer into your life, and I really recommend you take a moment to discover it and, then, to put it into practice if it so moves you.
Journeying around the Internet today, came across a poem by Gibran that wanted to include in the
Read more: Pearl
A Little Reminder
2007-01-30 19:01:00
Going through some tough times these days. With a small bit of breathing room, I took a journey to one of my favorite haunts - Half Price Books.
I was looking through their spiritual books, and had picked out a paperback to look at. As I turned, I caught sight of a book that had been put back on the shelf sideways, lying on top of the other books.
It was The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox,
Read more: Reminder
Those Pesky Mystics
2007-01-19 20:07:00
If you want to see fireworks, don't wait till July 4th, just drop the word "mystic" in with fundamentalists or those who, usually out of fear, have earnestly cast God in their own, rather limited, point of view.
Case in point. I noticed someone visited this site from a link I'd never seen before, and when I checked it out I came across a forum in which a person who identified himself by his
Read more: Mystics
The World Said No
2007-01-15 04:22:00
Want to understand a bit more about why Jesus of Nazareth was in his life and remains today so powerful for people?
That insight, I believe, doesn't lie in the repetition of various creeds and dogmas, and especially not in the emphasis on Jesus' death to the exclusion of his life and teachings, a mistake that has characterized much of Christianity for many, many years.
I think, instead, one
Read more: World
What Is It About Jesus?
2007-01-15 04:07:00
Put in the name Jesus
for a Google Search and you come up with 40,600,000 pages. How do others stack up?
Internet 1,170,000,000
Islam 38,200,000
Weight Loss 31,500,000
Cell Phone 29,300,000
Poker 27,6000,000
The Poor 16,800,000
George W. Bush 16,100,000
Paris Hilton 11,600,000
Shakespeare 11,000,000
Christianity 8,760,000
Beatles 7,830,000
Buddha 3,410,000
Buddhism 3,170,000
Allah 2,090,000
What's The One Book......
2007-01-14 16:24:00
Jorge Luis Borges once said, "To rearrange a library is to quietly practice literary criticism." I have a few shelves of books around the house, and as I pass by I sometimes wonder which one would be the one I'd keep. Fortunately, I've never had to make that decision, but I did come up with one that obviously I'd like in the top five!
This wasn't an academic exercise, I assure you. My wife and I
Oops, I Did It Again
2007-01-08 16:19:00
As St. Paul says, “That which I would not do, I do; and that which I would do, I do not."
Ain't it the truth?
Paul represents one particular stream of Christian thought, although historically we know there were many, many interpretations and understandings of Jesus in the very first years after his death. Quite simply, Paul's happens to be the side that "won" and shaped what we might call
Read more: Again
Will The Real Brian Robertson....
2007-01-04 20:27:00
All of us have difficult days, we all have our share of problems and stress. Myself, in particular. I wonder then, and quite often, if people who find their way to this website (and I'm grateful to each of you) may get the wrong idea about the person behind the site -- myself.
There was an old tv show I grew up watching -- To Tell The Truth. Three people -- one of them the actual person whose
Read more: Brian
, Robertson
Devils and Angels
2007-01-02 17:24:00
'The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the
Read more: Angels
The Poetry of God
2007-01-02 02:06:00
I paid another of my very, very regular visits to PoetSeers, a site that offers an astonishing collection of the poetry of Christian mystics, as well other remarkable samples from a variety of traditions.
One poem, which I talk about on the site, really grabbed hold of me. It is what I would call a "re-imagining" of a poem by St. John of the Cross by poet Daniel Ladinsky. I wanted to highlight
Read more: Poetry
Enough
2006-12-31 19:50:00
Sorry to have been away for a few days, but dental surgery and complications have made life, well, interesting the past four days!
I've been reading an excellent book and one I'd certainly recommend to anyone trying to understand Jesus and get a handle on who he was and who he wasn't: Jesus The Man: An Introduction For People At Home in the Modern World, written by Marvin Cain. Cain is a former
Read more: Enough
Nativity Sermon
2006-12-24 19:57:00
Nativity Sermon
By St. Isaac the Syrian (d. AD 700)
This Christmas night bestowed peace on the whole world;
So let no one threaten;
This is the night of the Most Gentle One -
Let no one be cruel;
This is the night of the Humble One -
Let no one be proud.
Now is the day of joy -
Let us not revenge;
Now is the day of Good Will -
Let us not be mean.
In this Day of Peace -
Let us not be
Read more: Nativity
Approaching Faith
2006-12-24 16:49:00
As I was going through some papers, I found a folded up piece of newspaper that I'd set aside quite a while ago. Finding it again today, Christmas Eve, seemed especially fortunate, and I wanted to share it with you. To me, it seems a way of looking at things that can bring each of us together, regardless of our particular take on spirituality.
God is beyond our capacity to define because to
Read more: Approaching
, Faith
Simply Christian
2006-12-18 20:09:00
Years ago, a Unitarian minister told me the story about a Unitarian who was walking along a road that forked. To the left the sign said "Heaven" while the sign pointing to the right read, "A Discussion About Heaven." Being a Unitarian, the story went, he turned right.
I have to admit that throughout most of my life, I eagerly made the right turn as well!
As time goes by in my life, however, I
Read more: Christian
The Jesus Prayer and My Spiritual Practice
2006-12-12 23:40:00
After some 30 years of journeying through a variety of traditions and approaches to God, as I get older I find simplicity wins out. When I was younger, I was always attracted by the opportunity to debate, study, experiment and, to my embarrassment now, even teach.
But health and time have made many things impossible for me, personally, and so I have found that it is enough to approach God simply
Read more: Jesus
, Prayer
, Practice
Remembering St. Isaac the Syrian
2006-12-11 16:21:00
From a collection of St. Isaac
the Syrian from the main website:
Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others.
Be crucified, but do not crucify others.
Be slandered, but do not slander others.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep: such is the sign of purity.
Suffer with the sick.
Be afflicted with sinners.
Exult with those who repent.
Be the friend of all, but
Read more: Remembering
Lorenzo Albacete - The Mystic Priest
2006-12-07 02:06:00
Monsignor Lorenzo
Albacete, formerly a physicist and a professor of theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York, also known as "The Mystic
Priest
." Add to that another word: delightful.
ChristianMystics.com is neither Catholic nor Protestant, I just thought he would be of interest to visitors to the site. His essays have appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine.
For more
Jesus - The Meeting of The Divine and The Human
2007-05-03 01:44:00
Jesus is for me, the meeting point of the human and divine. His value to me is not merely that He tells of the divine in man, but that in Himself He reveals to us the human side of the Character of God.
John Wilhelm Rowntree
Many of us were brought up in a Christian church, and for some – and I include myself – we left it behind, moving on a path that wound through metaphysics, Eastern
Read more: Jesus
, Divine
Sacred Space
2007-05-05 02:13:00
Tucked away in the ChristianMystics.com website is a section on Links, with comments, and I hope you'll take the time to visit it sometime and see the sites. Er, sights.
There is one place that I want to particularly recommend to you. Sacred Space
is a must-have. The site says,
"We invite you to make a 'Sacred Space' in your day, and spend ten minutes, praying here and now, as you sit at your
One of My Favorite Quotes
2007-05-05 01:57:00
Tags: bonaventure, christian mystics, god, christians, jesus
Read more: Favorite
, Quotes
The Christian Agnostic
2007-05-15 22:26:00
From The Christian
Agnostic
(1965)
Leslie D. Weatherhead
The past week or two I've been reading and rereading an exceptional book -- The Christian Agnostic by Leslie Weatherhead. It's worth a look, believe me, and one which you can agree with or disagree with, but enjoy. Here's an ethic:
I feel that it is no sin to be an agnostic. By "agnostic" I do not of course mean the atheist, who declares
God Within?
2007-05-20 00:41:00
One of the most famous and beloved quotes from Jesus is his statement, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." (Luke 17:21). It is also one that has been watered down by fundamentalists and others until the powerful phrase "within you" is said to mean the rather lackluster "amongst you."
Typical of the argument is this one, taken from a web site -- and there are a number of the same things out
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