Saturday, December 22, 2012

The Psychotic Separation from God

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. When I published our most recent program, Glorification and the Christmas Spirit, I mentioned that it would be our last program of 2012.

And so I thought. But my dear friend, Bob Butler, sent along an article the other day about the quite advanced movement to take Christ out of Christmas, and I felt obligated to step into the fray to address this unnecessary and imprudent tendency.

I say unnecessary because forbidding a school to call a tree the mount in the hallway in December a Christmas tree is not in support of the tolerant and pluralistic society we say we live in. My contention is that if that's all it takes to offend someone, then I think that person's problems are a little more serious than simple indignation.

And imprudent because the psychological and social consequences of eliminating humankind's spiritual dimension are grave. As we'll discover on the journey you'll embark on in our program today.

The Psychotic Separation from God, when Thinking with Somebody Else's Head returns on the STOP Radio Network.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Glorification and the Christmas Spirit

Another Christmas period, and all that that brings. The packed parking lots, the festive yuletide happy hours, cooking - and eating - the fatted calf.

And maybe, in a quiet, reflective moment, a spark of will catch flame inside you and for a few seconds or moments or, if you're lucky, hours, you'll feel a deep sense of place and connection with your fellow man and the universe that you recognize as the Christmas spirit.

Those tantalizing moments are tragically short-lived. Some complain that they don't like this time of year because we should have this spirit all round. "It's fake and phony," they say. But it doesn't fell that way to any who are still enough to allow themselves to receive the grace and depth of that spirit. That Holy Spirit we can call it, and we should take time to remember that this time of year is for honouring that divine presence. Yes, Christmas, of all times, is time to remember that.

Glorification and the Christmas Spirit, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

The Science of Spirits

Welcome to Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Nowadays, a conversation about spirits is looked upon in most of our western world with a high degree of suspicion. Five hundred years or so of materialistic, positivistic science has pretty much kicked the stuffing out of the philosophy that included spirituality in its precepts.

But some formidable literary and philosophical figures included the spirit world in their canon - including Shakespeare and Dickens. Some great artists even considered the purpose of arts to be a transcendental one, and included subjects like spirits and God in their everyday conversations.

It is mostly we moderns who now, in our smug self-assuredness, pooh-pooh the idea of spiritual influence as being old fashioned and passé, and dismiss any such views as superstitious and childlike.

But maybe these past geniuses had a better grasp on reality than we do. Maybe there is something from the vast pre-modern worldview that bears a further look, and could be brought back now to help us make sense of our complex and confusing modern world.

The Science of Spirits today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head on the STOP Radio Network.

Click here to listen to this episode.