Spirituality

This weekend in Birmingham is the first weekend of the new year of Workshop, the course for 'inclusive Christian learning in today’s diverse world.'

The first weekend is called Spirituality - living under an open heaven, and the great news is there's still time to book up!

This is what the weekend is going to look at …

So all that remains for this, the eighth installment of my Advanced Workshop essay comparing New Age spirituality and Christianity, is to offer you the conclusion.

The word limit for the essay was 3000 words ± 10%, and so, as with almost all my essays, I went flying past the 3000 words and had to try really hard to end up with the final work count of 3,299 words!

The result is that my conclusion is more functional than I would have liked - nothing more than a summary of the argument. I would liked to have given some conluding thoughts more than just summarise the essays, but that's the limits of word counts! Maybe I'll offer some concluding thoughts here on the site somewhere in my next few posts. Maybe you have some concluding thoughts yourself - if so, leave a comment.

If you're just entering at this point, you may like to read for your yourself the previous posts of the essay, which you can do by selecting the links on the right of this page.

So, without further ado, here's the conclusion.

Today is the seventh installment of my Advanced Workshop essay comparing New Age spirituality and Christianity.

In the previous installment I began looking at the Aquarian understanding of the nature of reality, looking in particular at Aquarian notions of God and the self. Today's episode takes this on further to understanding the role of a faith community and to questions of ethics.

If you're just entering at this point, you may like to read for your yourself the previous posts of the essay, which you can do by selecting the links on the right of this page.

Please do leave your comments or reflections!

Today is the sixth installment of my Advanced Workshop essay comparing New Age spirituality and Christianity.

Today I start looking at the specific understanding of the nature of reality within the Aquarian vision, using critque it from Christian understanding of the Kingdom of God. Today's post specifically examines the nature of God and the self within the Aquarian approach.

I you're just entering at this point, you may like to read for your yourself the previous posts of the essay, which you can do by selecting the links on the right of this page.

Please leave your comments or reflections - it's nice for me to know there's someone out there!

Ok, so here's the fifth installment of my Advanced Workshop essay comparing New Age spirituality and Christianity.

Today's post carries on from examining why we're talking about an 'aquarian age' by asking about Aquarian eschatology - if the Kingdom of God is understood as 'now' but 'not yet', what are Aquarian notions of the ultimate destiny of humanity?

I you're just entering at this point, you may like to read for your yourself the title and some of the background thoughts to this essay, or catch up by reading the introduction, about why it's a 'new age' and why that new age might be considered and aquarian age. Please leave your comments or reflections if you would like to.

Today is the fourth installment of my Advanced Workshop essay comparing New Age spirituality and Christianity. We've so far had the introduction and begun to look at the what is meant by a New Age.

Today's post asks why it should be an 'aquarian age' and seeks to assess the notion of an age of aquarius in the light of Christian understanding of the Kingdom of God.

I you're just entering at this point, you may like to read for your yourself the title and some of the background thoughts to this essay. Please leave your comments or reflections if you would like to.

Today is the third installment of my Advanced Workshop essay comparing New Age spirituality and Christianity. On Saturday I posted the introduction to the essay, which set the scene for the subject and laid out the structure of the essay.

Today's post asks the question, what is meant by a 'new age' and what are the questions being asked to which a new age is a necessary answer?

I you're just entering at this point, you may like to read for your yourself the title and introduction to this essay. Please leave your comments or reflections if you would like to.

Well, yesterday we had our first pilgrimage walk. If you've no idea what I'm talking about you might like to read more about what we were up to.

In the end we left the starting point at around 11.30, and it took us about 2 hours to walk to the priory ruins at Much Wenlock. The children all did amazing walking (though some are way too big to be in back packs still!), and we had plenty of stops for prayers and snacks along the way. The journey was beautiful, through cider orchards and woods, over a stream, through several fields and finally through the village of Much Wenlock.

Wenlock Priory was dedicated to St Milburga, the first Abbess of the original Anglo Saxon monastery who was later canonised because she was said to be able to talk with birds. Consequently, the focus of our walk was our place in and as part of nature, divine creation, mother earth. And we used the famous prayer of St Francis of Assisi, the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, as the liturgical centre of our ceremony in the priory. I've uploaded our version of the Canticle to this page, which you can download at your whim.

This was our essential thought for the walk:

Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society
--Saint Francis