Friday, October 28, 2011

Religions have to be spiritual...duh!

Crazy observations, from David Briggs

Men would rather watch Monday Night Football than go shopping. Eating too many Hardees Monster Thickburgers is linked to obesity. Texting while driving is a bad idea.

There are times when research findings are so obvious they are almost beyond questioning. So it is puzzling that growing evidence showing the importance of congregations cultivating the spiritual lives of the faithful is so routinely ignored.

As I've said before, it is amazing how easily many of our synagogues (and, as always, I'm sure this includes churches, mosques and other houses of worship) forget this basic truth. We exist, more than anything else, for religious purposes. Spiritual purposes. I'm not suggesting that all we should do is sit around and explore our inner spiritual lives. Social Justice, learning, socializing and much more all have a place in the religious world, and they always will.

But, a synagogue which doesn't help people to explore their spiritual lives simply isn't doing its job.

Hey - have I self-servingly mentioned recently that, starting in November, we'll be holding a monthly session before Shabbat services, in which we'll explore personal prayer? Or, that it's called Making Prayer Real?

Come to our first session on Nov 12 at 9:00 a.m. or come to an information session on Nov 1 at 7:30 p.m.

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