Christ wasn’t “into” doctrine (he criticized the Pharisees for that), but instead chose to focus on teaching his disciples to live with compassion.

Laozi said, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao.”

This minister sees it this way:  The real world is multi-dimensional, while our thinking has been limited to the three-dimensional, and our language is essentially one- or two-dimensional.  This means that every time we conceive of something beyond the mundane which we want to express and may think we’ve found the words for, our idea is immediately constrained and twisted by the natural limitations of language.

Therefore, spirituality cannot be adequately pinned down in words, but is best practiced and communicated by example.

~

So, I’m not all that excited to establish doctrine – but I may, little by little, perhaps with your help.  

But stories are something else!

I offer my personal story (my “Spiritual History”) and my testimony, and encourage you to decide if our stories resonate and to share your stories if you’d like.

It’s probably why the greatest Teachers are story tellers.  (And the doctrinaire continue to argue.)

~

“I will tell you something about stories,” he said.
“They aren’t just for entertainment.  Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see –
all we have to fight off illness and death.

You don’t have anything if you don’t have stories.
Their evil is mighty, but it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories, let the stories be confused.
Or forgotten….

There is life here for the people, and in the belly of this story.”

—from Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony,
Spider Woman quoting someone unknown (to me)

 Speak your truth!