All posts tagged: Separation

Choice and Consequence Part 6: Knowing What You Know

April 17, 2022
by Michael
comments 15
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 5 of the series is here. I’ve suggested in this series that experience follows from the fundamental orientation of our perceptual apparatus. We each occupy a thought system through which meaning and identity emerge, and while we are each unique, there are but two possibilities for the cornerstone of such a system: what I’ve described as unity (reality) and what I’ve described as separation (image). I’ve also suggested this distinction is one that profoundly […]

Choice and Consequence Part 5: Free Will, Learning and Determinism

February 13, 2022
by Michael
comments 30
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 4 of the series is here. I listened to a YouTube video this week in which physicist Sean Carroll gave a talk entitled “God Is Not a Good Theory.” In his presentation, Dr. Carroll used Bayesian probabilities to compare the likelihood of God’s existence to the likelihood that we live in a multiverse—(multiverses being one naturalistic way of explaining the appearance of a statistically unlikely universe such as our own). The Bayesian procedure involves […]

Choice and Consequence Part 4: Benevolence

January 29, 2022
by Michael
comments 16
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 3 of the series is here. Last time I wrote about the distinction between unity and separation—the two possible cornerstones of our individual thought systems. Each of these serves as the organizing factor for all that follows in our perceptual navigation of experience. In describing the transition from the state of perfect communication within the primordial state of being—which is unity—to the condition of separation, I noted that “the experience of being separate was granted, […]

Choice and Consequence Part 3: Reality vs Image

January 18, 2022
by Michael
comments 30
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 2 of the series is here. When I was a child my parents had a painting that fascinated me. It depicted a dinner table with countless guests on either side that tapered to a point and disappeared into infinity. My parents were Roman Catholic at the time and I believe it was a metaphorical image of heaven. I remember asking, “How far does it go?” and being told, “Forever.” Which is all well and […]

The Power of Choice

November 21, 2021
by Michael
comments 12
Course Ideas / Reflections

Sometimes I really enjoy discussing quantum physics, cosmology, or the nature of human consciousness, but these are largely pursuits of pleasure for my intellect, the way a great novel can be a pursuit of pleasure for the soul. There are fascinating adventures to be had. And while it’s good clean fun to wonder how what is observed fits into what I think deep down about how things work, at the end of the day . […]

On Conflict and Freedom

August 11, 2019
by Michael
comments 17
Course Ideas / Reflections

I have come to an important realization I think. And it’s not to say that I didn’t sort of know this already, but there’s a difference in knowing something and really knowing it. We’ve all seen these dichotomies: the zone defense or man-to-man, materialism or spiritualism, unrestrained capitalism or comprehensive socialism, cardio or strength training, STEM or liberal arts, the Right or the Left… And we all have at least one or two thoughts on […]

What I Believe and Why, Part 6

September 4, 2017
by Michael
comments 34
Christ / Course Ideas

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] I want to close this series by stating that I believe Love, and expressions of Love, are all that truly exist. When I say that expressions of Love truly exist, I mean that they endure, they are timeless in a sense, they add unto the eternal fabric of being, they open pathways to new modes of being, and they enrich all aspects of being simultaneously. […]

The Arc of Being

January 16, 2017
by Michael
comments 36
Course Ideas / Reflections

The other morning on the ride to work, I heard a story on Maine Public Radio about the various preachers that would be offering a prayer at the upcoming Presidential Inauguration. The report made it clear that several of the individuals were known for teaching the “Prosperity Gospel,” which apparently is the idea that earthly success may be interpreted as a symbol, or perhaps even an outcome, of divine favor. This idea is so pernicious […]

What Is a Miracle?

January 31, 2016
by Michael
comments 39
Course Ideas / Reflections

Our dear friend Hariod asked me after my last post what the word miracle means to me, and as I thought about how to answer I realized my response would very quickly get out of hand in the post commentary.  Hence this post.  It’s a question I savor answering because I don’t quite know how I’m going to do it.  I have a feeling about what I wish to say, but the closer I get to the center […]

Entrenched in Remembering

December 20, 2015
by Michael
comments 32
Course Ideas

For the past six weeks I’ve been entrenched in the birth throes of an industrial project, feeling myself slowly succumb to its eye-dimming cocktail of fatigue and necessity.  I’ve been watching myself sigh in the hallway, crack jokes over the intercom, eat meals with forks unable to spear anything that wasn’t already mashed, and enter a stupor of gratitude when the person beside me stepped out of the darkness carrying a solution– something half-corroded with wires […]