Pastor Craig's ConSpiritu Blog

One of the most heavily-watched athletic events is the Olympics. Whether it is the precision and grace of figure-skating, the power and physical mastery of gymnastics or the endurance and strength of the marathon, every event highlights the hard work and dedication necessary for humans to achieve their full potentials. Each athlete may begin with certain innate abilities but these remain merely a latent possibility until that athlete submits himself or herself to a systematic and rigorous training program. This training program is more than simply strength and endurance training. Integral to the discipline of the body is discipline of the mind. This fact was brought home to me in an essay that a student once wrote in an English composition class I taught. She was a state-ranked cross-country runner, and her essay described the thought processes that went on in a typical run. Constantly she had to gauge not only her own energy reserves, but also she had to monitor the movements of the o...

One of the central practices in Judaism from ancient days involves the recitation of what is called the Shema . It is called that because the first word in Hebrew is “ shema ,” which means to hear. It is a command, however, and means more precisely, “Listen to this with the fullness of your being and a complete intention of obeying.” I think I would have rabbinical approval of this interpretation of “ shema. ”   Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates . The shema was taught to the Israelites by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:...

  From time to time, certain movies or books come along that fire the imagination with such a sense of breadth and depth that they become emblematic and evocative of the broad dimensions of the human condition and experience. In 1977, George Lucas released the first of a series of movies that expressed just such a sweeping visionary saga. Of course, I’m referring to the Star Wars movies. The first movie came out while I was in college. My brother Brett was 13 at the time, but he was so gripped by the movie that he watched it at least 11 times during its first run. George Lucas was influenced in his development of the Star Wars storyline by Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a book first published in 1949, that described a theme found in literature and mythology worldwide. Campbell was interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS for his series, “The Power of Myth.” Hero’s journey In his book, Campbell described what he called the monomyth of the hero’s journey: “Th...

I have been recently working my way through a book entitled A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., and Richard Lannon, M.D. Now, it just so happens that Jesus has a lot to say about love, and the Bible does as well. So when three psychiatrists decide to weigh in and offer a general theory of love, I think it behooves me to check out what they have to say. The three authors are all practicing clinicians and teach at the University of California, San Francisco medical school. As the dustcover describes it, “they describe the workings of our ancient, pivotal urge for intimacy, revealing that our nervous systems are not self-contained: from earliest childhood our brains actually link with those of the people close to us in silent rhythm that makes up the life force of the body. These wordless ties determine our mood, stabilize and maintain our health, and change the structure of our brains, so that, in a very real sense, who we are and who we become depend on...