I am tossing around ideas and activities for a workshop I want to do (I'll call it a playshop
because I want participants to play with ideas and beliefs in a lighthearted way.) I hope I have the nerve to actually do it. But I am giving you an odd tidbit on my work. As I have been writing and looking over my reading and resources/quotes I suddenly wanted to sum up where I was in my thinking. These are my predictions for the next ten years. I'll be dead as a doornail before this turmoil is through. I'll be madly projecting my energy from another realm. (Hey, let's get spooky)
Anyway, a few of my predictions:
—Science and religion will merge as we begin to understand
that science at its edges has no certainty and neither can religion. As new
physics grows by working with the invisible, the mysterious, the awesome and
the multi-outcomes possible it will bump into the
renewing religious examination going on. They will live
together easily with no need of one negating the other.
—The violent hot hatred in the world will continue until the
pain of is too much for most people to tolerate and they will have to become
active in their own way to love hate to death. This will take a different kind
of love than commonly understood. This love will need fortitude, savvy,
discipline, persistence, utter determination AND still work from a loving
stance for the common good or there will be no individual good.
—Most formal religions will continue to lose membership and
engagement though disillusionment for older members and through indifference by
younger members. Most young adults will be indifferent. However, a common
phrase at use is “I am spiritual but not religious. Many of the alienated use
it. I view it as a placeholder. It holds people in a space of what some call
‘neutral religion’. Not quite.
It does show an unwillingness to totally let go. Many of SNR
still believe in God and pray but it is an individual approach based on
personal experience. Eventually (I’m talking 20 years or more) new form and
structure and ritual and ‘clarified truth’ will emerge. For right now
‘spiritual not religious’ provides a category people can live with.
—Church without walls will become a viable concept with
social media creating methods to gather and discuss and pray and organize into
like minds and hearts. ADD QUOTE ABOUT
COMPUTER BEING SPIRITUAL BY HUSBAND OF????? British author
—There will be a different image of God translated through
many lenses. The Father image and the Sistine Chapel image will fade allowing
for new. It will take awhile for a common image to emerge that captures the
modern post religious need. It will not be sacrilegious. It will be
newreligious. Many books and article's are being written about this coming from
all Faiths. This is not a Christian Phenomena
—Literalists and Fundamentalists will begin to lose power
because centralized power will not be attractive or tolerated by people in most
institutions. The strength of over powering power right now is the last gasp of
dying institutions as we go through this time of transition into new forms of
living, worshipping, dying, working, playing and being. Secularism as an organized approach to meaning in life and
bettering will grow. Mystery will prevail.
There you have it. I will have all participants make their own predictions.
Would love to hear yours.
