Thinking Outside the Church: 110 Ways to Connect with Your Spiritual NatureAndrews McMeel Publishing, 2004 - 306 pages Thinking Outside the Church examines 100 ways people connect with their spirituality. It does not seek to supplant the religious feeling many people experience inside a church, but seeks instead to supplement that experience by suggesting a more expansive view of spirituality. In this view, the world and our activities outside the church are also seen as the sites and rites of worship and spiritual practice, as ways of connecting with our personal vision or version of the sacred.From art, nature, and dreams to dancing, traveling, and parenting, Jennifer Leigh Selig points readers toward the potential and the power present in diverse pathways that may not traditionally be seen as religious or spiritual. In addition to her own thoughtful introductions, Selig collects quotes that span cultures, time periods, religions, and wisdom traditions, each testifying to the universality of seeking the spiritual by Thinking Outside the Church. |
Contents
Celebrating | 2 |
Cooking and Dining | 4 |
Daily Living | 8 |
Dancing | 11 |
Doing | 14 |
Flying | 16 |
Gardening | 19 |
Giving | 21 |
Dying | 93 |
Enjoying Small Pleasures | 96 |
Gifts and Talents | 98 |
Grace | 100 |
The Heart | 103 |
Intuition | 105 |
Letting Go | 108 |
Living | 110 |
Healing | 23 |
Laughing | 26 |
Learning and Education | 28 |
Making Love | 31 |
Meditating | 34 |
Parenting | 36 |
Playing Sports | 39 |
Praying | 41 |
Reading | 44 |
Sleeping | 46 |
Speaking | 49 |
Studying Religions | 52 |
Teaching | 54 |
Traveling | 57 |
Visioning and Dreaming | 59 |
Working | 64 |
Worshipping | 67 |
Writing | 69 |
EXPERIENCES | 73 |
Adversity and Suffering | 74 |
Aging | 76 |
Becoming | 79 |
Believing | 81 |
Chaos | 83 |
Contemplating Eternity | 86 |
Desire | 89 |
Dreaming | 91 |
Losing Ourselves | 113 |
Marriage | 115 |
Miracles | 118 |
Mystery | 120 |
Pregnancy and Birth | 123 |
The Spirit Within | 129 |
THE NATURAL WORLD | 137 |
The Earth | 143 |
Nature | 149 |
Science | 155 |
The Sky and Its Bodies | 162 |
PEOPLE | 168 |
Babies | 178 |
Family | 185 |
Spirit Guides | 191 |
STATES OF BEING | 225 |
Being Childlike | 231 |
Being Inspired | 238 |
Being Present | 246 |
Being Unique | 254 |
Compassion | 260 |
Happiness | 268 |
Humility | 275 |
Questioning | 289 |
Color 203 | 297 |
Common terms and phrases
Albert Einstein alive angels baby beauty become believe body breathing Buddha called Carl Jung child church color compassion connection consciousness create dance desire divine dreams earth eternal everything eyes faith feel flowers forgiveness gift give God's gods grace Hafiz happy healing heart heaven Henry Henry David Thoreau Henry Wadsworth Longfellow holy hope human humility inspiration John Kahlil Gibran kind letting go listen live look Marianne Williamson marriage means meditation Meister Eckhart mind miracle monk mystery nature never night nourish ourselves Paramahansa Yogananda peace person poetry pray prayer Ralph Waldo Emerson religion religious reverence sacred Saint Sarah Ban Breathnach sense silence sleep soul speak teach teacher Thich Nhat Hanh things Thomas Merton Thomas Moore trees truth understand universe vision voice walk wisdom wonder words worship writes