by James Park
INTRODUCTION:
If we want to organize
and focus our inner lives,
we need some practical methods of cultivating
our deeper dimensions,
so that our inner sensibilities will put
down deep roots and flourish
rather than, once sprouted, wither and die
away.
Solitude is the precondition
of any life of the spirit.
We should not expect to be busily engaged
every moment of the day
and still hope to have some inward depth.
A human being who has not a single hour of his own every day
is no human being. ---Rabbi Moshe Leib
If we want to
become sensitive to our inward spirits,
we must find a time and place
away from the distractions of people and
events.
Perhaps we should take an extended 'vacation
from life',
a period of solitude to reflect
on the whole scope of our lives and deaths.
Rather than a vacation of escape, looking
for new experiences,
this could be a period of probing more deeply
into ourselves.
Besides solitude
to recollect ourselves,
we need some actual activities to help us
to deepen our lives.
This article describes 5 ways to expand our
spirits:
OUTLINE:
A. Written
Meditation---A Journal of Spirit.
B. Spirit-Stimulating Books.
C. Small Groups of People Discussing the
Life of the Spirit.
D. Letters about Matters of Spirit.
E. Individual Conversation and Sharing with
other Persons of Spirit.
TEXT:
"Ways to Expand
Our Spirits"
.
USED BY:
Heart, Mind, &
Spirit
---An Electronic Magazine for UUs on Campus,
Fall 2000
If
we do not believe in
any 'spirits' beyond ourselves,
can we still have a spiritual life?
This cyber-sermon will explore six capacities
of inwardness beyond our
physical, emotional-psychological, & intellectual
dimensions of being:
(1) self-transcendence—going beyond ourselves;
(2) freedom—resisting socialization and re-inventing
ourselves;
(3) creativity—bringing something new into
being;
(4) love—reaching out to others as Thou;
(5) anxiety—feeling our underlying Malaise;
and
(6) glimpses of joy and fulfillment
—discovering life beyond angst and
despair.
OUTLINE:
Introduction: how spirit differs from other dimensions of our beings:
1. the physical dimension—given by our genes;
2. the emotional-psychological dimension—learned since birth;
3. the intellectual
dimension
—characterized by words, verbal learning;
4. the spiritual
dimension—beyond the physical,
emotional, and intellectual dimensions
—characterized by the following capacities.
Capacities of Our Human Spirits:
1. Self-Transcendence, Self-Criticism, & Altruism
2. Freedom: Transcending Enculturation and Choosing for Ourselves
3. Creativity: Making Something Genuinely New
4. Love: The I-Thou Encounter, Discovering other Persons of Spirit
5. Existential Anxiety
and other Manifestations of our Existential Predicament
Five differences between simple fear and existential anxiety:(1) description
6. Glimpses of Joy and Fulfillment
In our deepest moments of spirit, we may notice that
depression has been lifted, angst has disappeared.
Heart, Mind, &
Spirit
---An Electronic Magazine for UUs on Campus,
Winter 2001
Loneliness is an aching
void in the center of our beings,
a deep longing to love and be loved,
to be fully known and accepted by at
least one other person.
It is a hollow, haunting sound sweeping
thru our depths,
chilling our bones and causing us to
shiver.
Is
there a person,
anywhere,
who has never felt the stab of loneliness,
who has never experienced
the eerie distance of isolation and separation,
who has never suffered the pain of rejection
or the loss of love?
The
final rupture or
breakdown of a valued loving relationship,
the sudden death of someone who was close
and special,
an unavoidable separation from a loved
one
—these things strike loneliness into
our hearts,
the intense experience of the absence
of that specific person.
Besides longing for a specific person,
sometimes loneliness
has no name attached.
This is the general feeling of being
alone,
isolated, separated from others.
And
there is a third
kind of loneliness—existential loneliness—
which is even deeper and more pervasive
than either of the first two.
It often disguises itself as longing
for a specific person
or pretends to be yearning for contact
with anyone,
but this deeper lack or emptiness-of-being
is not really a kind of loneliness at
all.
Being together with other people, even
people we intensely love,
does not overcome this deep incompleteness
of being.
This inner default of selfhood has never
been solved by relationships,
no matter how good and close and warm
our relationships might be.
OUTLINE:
I. Five Differences
between
Interpersonal Loneliness and Existential Loneliness
II. How Does it Feel to be Existentially Lonely?
III. Beyond Existential Loneliness
TEXT:SYNOPSIS:
This
exploration of our inner spaces
will contrast two forms of depression:
(1) psychological or situational depression and
(2) existential or spiritual depression.
Psychological depression is always linked with specific
life-situations:
We get depressed when our jobs are boring,
when we have family or financial problems,
when love lets us down, etc.
But
the other
kind of depression
cannot be directly traced to a cause.
We are quietly haunted by a vague sense or dark mood.
Thru the hollow depths of our being sounds a low, moaning tone,
which breaks into consciousness
when our daily preoccupations fall away.
Attempting to understand this deeper depression
will be the main thrust of this article.
OUTLINE:
I. TWO KINDS OF
DEPRESSION
A. Psychological Depression—From Disappointments
and Failures.
B. Existential Depression—Uncaused, Irrational,
Pervasive.
C. Differentiating Psychological and Existential
Depression.
II. THE DYNAMICS OF
EXISTENTIAL DEPRESSION
A. The Collapse of Comforting Life-Illusions.
B. Capturing Existential Depression in Descriptive
Words.
C. Attempting to Cope with Existential Depression.
III. FREEDOM FROM EXISTENTIAL DEPRESSION—EXISTENTIAL JOY
"Being Depressed
in Spirit:
Deeper than Psychological Depression"
Heart, Mind, &
Spirit
---An Electronic Magazine for UUs on Campus,
Winter 2001
Have you ever felt
the nameless dread?
Terror and anguish without a cause?
This article gives a name and a careful description
to the nameless threat, our free-floating
anxiety,
which we have all felt but perhaps
not faced.
First we must separate
existential anxiety
from ordinary fears as clearly as possible.
Then, how do we cope with anxiety?
And is it possible to live beyond angst?
OUTLINE:
I. FEAR & ANXIETY:
FIVE DIFFERENCES
1. Description.
2. Cause.
3. Duration.
4. Scope.
5. Cure.
II. HOW EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY SHOWS ITSELF
III. ATTEMPTING TO COPE WITH EXISTENTIAL
ANXIETY
IV. FREEDOM FROM ANGST
We
may summarize the five
basic differences
between simple fear and existential anxiety
in the following ways:
FIVE DIMENSIONS OF SIMPLE FEAR
1. Psychological response to danger.
2. Caused by specific
threats;
we know why we are afraid;
approaches from a certain quarter.
3. Temporary—lasts only
while
the danger is present; may pass by.
4. Limited to the
values
that can be reached by the threat.
5. We know how to
cope with fear:
fight or flight.
FIVE DIMENSIONS OF EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY
1. Free-floating 'terror'.
2. No intelligible
cause or source;
we don't know why we are 'afraid';
'comes from' everywhere and nowhere.
3.Permanent—ever-renewed
inner
state-of-being; does not pass away.
4. Pervades our whole
being;
unlimited menace; touches everything.
5. Nothing we do will
overcome anxiety;
psychological techniques are useless
TEXT:
USED BY:
The Church of
St. Soren,
May 2003
SYNOPSIS:
Human beings have been feeling guilt
since before the dawn of civilization.
The decline of organized religion in the West
has corresponded with less interest in guilt.
But at least for some people,
it is still relevant to look into
the deeper dimensions of the experience of guilt.
This cyber-sermon analyzes the psychological phenomenon
of pangs of moral conscience
and contrasts that intelligible experience
with the much deeper and less intelligible experience
with which it is frequently confused---existential guilt.
OUTLINE:
I. MORAL CONSCIENCE DIFFERS FROM EXISTENTIAL GUILT
II. COPING WITH EXISTENTIAL GUILT
III. HOW WE DISCOVER OUR EXISTENTIAL GUILT
IV. BEING RELEASED FROM EXISTENTIAL GUILT
V. SUMMARY: FIVE
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
MORAL CONSCIENCE & EXISTENTIAL GUILT
TEXT:
"Existential Guilt:
Deeper than the Pangs of Conscience"
USED BY:
Heart, Mind, &
Spirit
---An Electronic Magazine for UUs on Campus,
Spring 2003
To see the complete
list of cyber-sermons
by James Park,
click these blue words.