Ultimate Questions

The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning of your life?

Cosmic Riddles – The World of Science Copernicus & Galileo 17 th Century –Beginning of scientific revolution –Everything is called into question –Rene Descartes 18 th Century –Isaac Newton 19 th Century –Science and the common person Technology –Science as the new deity Characteristics –Ernst Haeckel –Unrest Dickens & Tennyson 20 th Century –Second scientific revolution The atom Conclusions

Telling the Human Story: Literature ns.htmhttp://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/storyorigi ns.htm

A Schizoid World: The Social Sciences Schizoid Existentialism Anxiety Social Anxiety – causes –Nuclear weapons –Competitiveness –Exaggerated expectations –Mobility –Lack of religious center Two Responses to Anxiety –avoidance and denial –“the courage to be” Intellect, Will & Emotion Eros vs. Thanatos –C.S. Lewis (storge, philia, eros, agape) Determinism

STIMULUSRESPONSE WHAT CAN HAPPEN BETWEEN STIMULUS & RESPONSE? PROACTIVE vs. REACTIVE “No one can hurt you without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt “They cannot take away our self- respect if we don’t give it to them.” -Gandhi

FREEDOM TO CHOOSE Independent Will ConscienceImagination Self Awareness RESPONSE STIMULUS

There’s nothing I can do, that’s just the way I am He makes me so mad I have to / I can’t / I must Let’s look at our alternatives,I can choose a different approach I can control my own feelings I choose / I prefer / I will

THE MOBIUS STRIP Thoughts on the Mobius Strip by Parker Palmer in the book, A Hidden Wholeness

Take a strip of paper with which we will make a Mobius Strip. One side of the strip represents your outer, onstage life. What is my image influence impact? The other side represents your inner, backstage life: Ideas, values, faith, heart, spirit, soul, etc.

Stage 1 Children come into this world with no separation between the inner and outer life.

Stage 2 Hold up the strip of paper so that it makes a “wall,” separating outer and inner worlds. We erect walls to serve as barriers between inner truth and the outer world. Examples If you live behind a wall long enough, not letting the world see who you are: You might forget there is a “real you” hidden there.

Three Consequences of Living Behind a Wall 1) My inner light cannot illuminate my work in the world 2) The light in the world cannot illuminate my inner darkness 3) People see us as “not being real” in our relationships and close themselves off from us.

Pain will crack open our closed world …if we are willing to feel it It could be loneliness, depression, anger, alienation, failed relationships, etc. that force us to admit something needs to change in our lives.

Stage 3 Form the strip of paper into a circle. “I decide I want my inner truth to be the measure for the decisions I make.” Who am I? What am I about? –a good step But there’s another side to this stage.

Shadow Side of Stage 3 When we live inside this new identity, we form a “secret garden” to which we invite only people with whom we feel at ease. We use our “inner truth” to exclude those we find challenging. This “circle” is really only a “wall” in disguise.

Stage 4 Make a Mobius Strip with the paper. Whatever is inside us continually flows outward to form or deform the world. Whatever is outside us continually flows inward to help form, or deform our lives. There is really only ONE REALITY.

The Bottom Line…. (1)We learn that stages 2 and 3 are illusions, although they were necessary at the time. (2) We think we are hiding our truth behind a wall. (3) We think we can use our truth to screen out what is alien to us. But we all live on a Mobius Strip—we are constantly engaged in an exchange of what is “out there” and what is “in here.”

OUR CHOICE We can walk the Mobius Strip wide awake to its continual interchanges, learning to co-create in ways that are life-giving to ourselves and others. Or we can sleep-walk on the Mobius Strip, unconsciously co-creating in ways that are dangerous and often deadly for relationships, good work, or hope.

What are we sending from within ourselves to the world and what impact does it have? What is the world sending back to us and what impact does it have in us? We have the POWER TO CHOOSE MOMENT TO MOMENT between THAT WHICH GIVES LIFE and THAT WHICH GIVES DEATH. All spiritual traditions ask us to wake up to the reality in which we live

In Stage 4 we come full circle to the place where we began—the adult version of the wholeness into which we were born. T.S. Eliot wrote: “We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”

1.What is the significance of the story of the man hanging off the cliff and eating the berry? How can you live life one moment at a time while beginning with the end in mind? 2.What is the significance of the story about the diamonds? 3.“Life is a banquet but most people are starving.” What does this mean to you? 4.What is the significance of the story of the man and the mendicant? “I don’t want this diamond. Could you give me the riches that make it possible for you to give this thing away? 5.“Life is something that happens to us while we’re busy at something else” You have 3 ½ months left at Cathedral. In what way (s) do you need to un-busy yourself and focus on life?

6.“The tragedy is not in how much we suffer, but in how much we miss.” What does this mean to you? 7.“Human beings are born asleep, live asleep and die asleep.” How do we wake up? 8.DeMello says we’re all given a drug as a child. What is the drug DeMello is talking about? 9.What happens once you take the drug? 10.What do you lose the ability to do when under the affects of the drug? What “drug” are you under the affects of? What have you lost the ability to do because of it? 11.In what ways do you respond as a robot?

12.What does DeMello mean when he says if you drop the drug everything will be the same, but, “You will have dropped out. You will be in the world but not of the world.” How does this idea parallel living a life of faith? 13.What is the difference between loneliness and aloneness? 14.Think of someone whose approval you think you need. In what way have you lost your freedom because of it? 15.Think of someone you think is necessary to ease the pain of your loneliness. In what way have you lost your freedom because of it?

16.What are the two kinds of desire DeMello talks about? What is the significance of this? 17.“As long as I need you, I cannot love you.” What do you think DeMello means by this? Do you agree or disagree? Why? 18.How does DeMello define spirituality? What role does religion play? 19.How often are you attune to what others think, feel and will say about you? 20.What do we need to discover in order to be transformed?

Determinism Genetic Determinism –Your grandparents did it to you Psychic Determinism –Your parents did it to you Environmental Determinism –Your environment is doing it to you