Original Faith: Book Note
Due to production delays, we have had do adjust our publication date and expect Original Faith to be released in spring of this year.
Original Faith
Finding the Interfaith Soul of Progressive Religion and Spirituality
From Author’s Preface:
The Word of our own nature begins and ends with something infinitely greater than ourselves, yet here and now resonates in our own voices. The Word that rises on our own breath is consistent with anyone’s beliefs or lack of beliefs. To speak the Word in this way is to feel and know something original to ourselves. It can only enrich us. It can only unite us. It is time.
Paul Maurice Martin
Original Faith
Finding the Interfaith Soul of Progressive Religion and Spirituality
From Author’s Preface:
The Word of our own nature begins and ends with something infinitely greater than ourselves, yet here and now resonates in our own voices. The Word that rises on our own breath is consistent with anyone’s beliefs or lack of beliefs. To speak the Word in this way is to feel and know something original to ourselves. It can only enrich us. It can only unite us. It is time.
Paul Maurice Martin
Posted by Paul at 11:08 AM Permalink
15 Comments:
Do I click on the "Request to be contacted when Original Faith is available to be purchased" for that?
its better half is silence.
Singing time's praise
is trying to understand its ways.
www.loving-awareness.org - A Journey to Wholeness
Yes, the Request to be contacted link just asks people to provide their email address if they’d like to be notified when the book’s available. That way, if someone happens not to be checking in on this blog regularly, they’ll still find out when it becomes possible to order the book.
AVGW: “It is time” here is the same usage as in, for example, “Is dinner ready yet?” “Yes – it’s time {to eat dinner)!" "It is time" to do such and such refers to something that's been previously stated.
Likewise with the final sentence of my paragraph: “It is time {to begin speaking the Word in the way that’s outlined in the prior sentences of the paragraph.}"
VISHESH: Language does have limits, and even in the form of a song.
MATTHEW: Yes – that’s the spirit of the book. On the Dalai Lama, I’ve only caught bits and pieces of interviews/quotations, but every time I’ve heard him, I’ve been greatly impressed.
I think you’re correct in pointing to the contemplative traditions of world religions as holding particular promise for interfaith dialog. A second area is love, which I view as a major cross-cultural form of spiritual experience. To date we’ve been pretty fuzzy about what love is, so for me that’s (literally) chapter one.
Your book sounds really terrific. It takes a lot of time and dedication to write anything and I congratulate you on your accomplishment.
Blessings and much success.
I’ve had people comment regularly who were less fluent than you. If it is language, I think what's made it tricky in your case is that you’re so fluent that I wasn't alert for it. Reminds me of how I’ve had occasional miscommunications with people from Britain over some word or phrase that they use a little differently from Americans.
In any case, I’m glad people who’ve learned English abroad check keep checking in, because I’d sure hate to try to blog in French, which would be my only other choice. C’est mon seulment langue deux, est je le parle tres tres mal…
ALEXYS, thanks. Btw, you have such a cool name. Sounds like a leading character from a novel.
VISHESH: If we redefine language as everything that humans can experience, then as you say, it has fewer limits than spoken language. I’d imagine that human experience itself would still have limits – just as ants, jellyfish, horses, whales and elephants presumably have certain limitations and particularities in how they’re able and not able to perceive the world. Like them, humans also have a particular and finite kind of brain/central nervous system.
also I want to know ur thoughts on my current post.
Keshi.
but what about the fact that all creatures can actually adapt themselves? you see dogs in the artic and antarctic as well as in the hot equatorial places....they have also been 'tamed'....it is just that all creatures i feel have the ability to tune into any wavelength...certain are reserved,but doesn't mean you can't access it....we do come across stories where animals do things which are 'surprising'....the light shines in everyone...it is just we have to look at it and we will know...in Indian mythology animals are given a lot of importance and there are stories when animals see into themselves and realise something more and evolve....
For example, in college I remember reading about studies of frogs where they found that their visual capacity was highly specific. They were adapted to see things that corresponded well to anything about the size and velocity of a fly, but not much else!
So I’m suggesting not just that other species may be limited, but that ours may be as well. As human beings we may have our own forms of myopia. Whatever the full picture of all-being is, and whatever the complete story of our involvement with it turns out to be, I’d be inclined to believe that as finite, mortal creatures, we’re probably limited as to what we can know and experience of the big picture, at least “in this life,” as they say.
But I only know what I know. Maybe other people have seen the full picture, and maybe something inherent to their experience gave them certain knowledge that they’d apprehended the whole story. But I don’t know that; my personal tendency would be to doubt the existence of a self validating, fully noetic experience of what life’s all about.
I had a blast of colloquialism blowing at my face during my first visit to USA. I had a transit stay at New York and had to find the bus that takes me from the airport to the hotel. The huge lady at the counter was hollering at me in full blast in response to my query. It could have been anything from ‘welcome to this holy land of America’ to ‘Why did you get out of your house if you can’t even speak intelligible language’. I was free to make my choices from the profuse gestures that tried to spell out her body language. The colloquial faith we tried to forge among ourselves gave rise to hilarious moments
In teaching ESL, once in a while things could get genuinely funny - and often my students were the ones to initiate things. I especially remember a boy from Cambodia, very bright, who would sometimes make mistakes on purpose and deliver his lines with a glazed look of stupidity in his eyes with unflappable irony. This young man completely understood that others sometimes perceived him as less intelligent because he hadn't mastered English yet, and turned it into a comedy act!
On "Original Faith" as my title, the main thing I mean to connote is something experienced first hand and not simply accepted on the basis of what others tell us.
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