Hints and Guesses

In an age obsessed with "knowing oneself," how do we not get stuck in endless autobiography and self-absorption?  At its best, a healthy spiritual and religious life helps free us from the cul-de-sac of narcissistic feedback.  In the episode, we'll look at a story from Saint Antony, a paragraph from C.S. Lewis about hell, and I'll outline the four foundations of a spiritual life from the book Journey Into Emptiness by Robert Jingen Gunn (a book about Dogen, Merton and Jung).  See below for the link I promised in the episode about the Cree mountains of human development.  Enjoy!   https://decolonialfutures.net/portfolio/fourmountains/#:~:text=Each%20mountain%20represents%20a%20stage,one%20mountain%20to%20the%20other. https://www.patreon.com/c/kentdobson  

Here's the final episode of The Christ Symbol.  This episode is about Authority and Resurrection (stage 6 and 7).  What does real authority look like?  What does it mean for a "grain of wheat to go into the ground and die?"  What is the nature of real change?  Hope you hear something from Jesus own transformed life, that may in fact trans-form your own.  Enjoy!

Here's the next episode in The Christ Symbol.  This episode is about Wilderness and Mission (stage 4 and 5), the necessity of the desert and the nature of a soul-oriented mission in the life of Jesus, a life transformed.  Hope you hear a hint or guess for your own spiritual growth.  Enjoy!

Here's the next episode in looking at Christ through a symbolic lens, a life transformed.  This episode is about Transcendent Encounter (stage 3), those moments we could not have predicted, manufactured, controlled, or made up.  Those moments when we know we are ushered into something larger.  Hope you hear a hint or guess for your own spiritual growth.  Enjoy!

What's going on with our thumbs?  Plus, the next episode in this series looking at the life of Christ through a symbolic lens, a life transformed.  This episode is about calling, the first nudges of our sense of meaning and destiny.  Hope you hear a hint or guess for your own spiritual growth.  Enjoy!

This is a long-format, unscripted, very personal conversation, with Paul Vanderklay.  We talk a bit about our stories, what it's like to be a pastor, what's been happening in the changing landscape of Christianity, and what the future might hold.  Check out Paul's YouTube channel for more content.  Enjoy! 

This episode is part of my series, Wandering through the Bible, where I look again at these ancient stories through a symbolic lens.  Beginning with a quote from Teilhard about the slow work of God, we then turn to the first stage of a life of Christ, a life transformed, the birth stories.  Special thanks to my Patrons.  Enjoy!

In this episode, I describe the changes faces of Jesus over the centuries, and what I mean by the Symbolic Christ.  I also explore in more detail what I call the three chords of listening to the Bible: story, context and symbol.  This is part of a series called Wandering through the Bible, where I return to some of the most important stories and images from the Christian tradition.  Hope you hear a hint or guess.  Enjoy!

I'm starting a new series on the Bible, particularly through the lens of symbol.  It feels like I've come back around again to the central stories and images of my tradition, but seeing and hearing new things.  To begin with, I'll be releasing parts of my audio book (A Grain of Wheat), which had only been free for my Patrons.  In this experimental audio book, I look at the stages of Christ's life, and the symbols that still feel potent.  Clearly Jesus lived a life transformed, and left a few hints and guesses.  No matter how you feel about the Bible, or what you might think, I hope you'll hear something meaningful and rich.  Enjoy!

We use the word love for sports teams, friends, partners, food, and even God.  What are we talking about?  What is love?   And how might we grow into more loving people?  Here are a few hints and guesses about romance, love of self, love of the other, and the possibility of divine love.  Inspiration for this podcast come from John O'Donohue's book Anam Cara, Robert Johnson's books He and She, and St Paul's letter to the Corinthians.  Enjoy!

There are many ancient stories about making a deal with the Devil.  What happens when we no longer take these seriously?  What is lost?  What are we missing?  I'd like to explore the consequences and opportunities in taking seriously what happens when we make a deal with the Devil through stories of the Handless Maiden, Faust, and the Temptation of Christ.  Enjoy!   

Here's a conversation with Quique Autrey, therapist, author and podcaster, about his new book Green Flags.  What does it look like to become a person who's a little more like a "green flag" than a red flag? Where does one even start with "depth psychology?"   Quique's highlights a number of accessible ways to turn the gaze inward, toward a healthier relationship with ourselves, which seems necessary in order to be a more generative presence in the world.  You can find out more about Quique, and buy the book, at https://www.quiqueautrey.com/ Hope you here a hint or guess for your own path.  

The word sermon implies a threading together, and I'd like to thread together some lines from St Paul, T.S.Eliot, and Jung.  I hope you'll find some encouragement and challenge from these voices, who in their own way, point beyond themselves to the transcendent, to God.  I can't think of anything more important in our age of mistrust.  

Here are few thoughts on feeling stuck, big storms gathering at the window, what it's like when our stories and imagination seem disconnected from the present, a few musings on intuition, the still small voice, the melody below the melody, being defeated, and less metaphorically, moving back to Michigan.  The poems that I quote are from Rilke and Annie Lighthart.  Enjoy!

What's the difference between mood and feeling?  Between emotions and values?  How do we grow our capacities for relationship, for deep values, in other words, how do we access the "feeling function" (Jung)?  This episode is an exploration of the feeling function, the common wounds associated with it, and some possibilities for developing a healthier "masculine" psyche.  I pull mainly from Robert A. Johnson's book He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, but also a little from Jung, and from my own experience.  Thanks for supporting this podcast.  I hope you hear and hint, a guess, for your own life.  Enjoy!

I'd like to explore the mystical, not as an expert, but a student.  Lately I've been inspired by Evelyn Underhill's insights in her book, Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Conscious which I quote in this podcast.  My sense is, that despite the darkness of the age we live in, something of the Absolute wishes to break in, to rearrange our consciousness.  When this happens, the old dream and the young see visions.  What might it look like for modern people, spiritual - religious - not-so-religious, to open up to the possibility of the transcendent, so that our present mode of consciousness, our small egoic frame, might grow?  What if Reality is not what we thought?  The mystics left us a few clues for how to listen and how to be.  

Here's a followup to Religious Problems, Religious Medicine, a further exploration of the tension between Law and Spirit, tradition and innovation, which seems to be natural and important.  I also have a few musings on the Wandering Desert God of the Hebrew people, as a kind of symbol for the religious outsider.  And I turn again to Jung's highly unusual sense for "God," which might open a few doors to the transcendent.  Enjoy!

Here's a follow up to Religious Problems, Religious Medicine.  Just a few thoughts on the Wandering God of Hebrew Bible, and a few hints and guesses about the tension between Law and Spirit, the Wild Galilean, and Jung's understanding of God as a sort of disrupter to our plans and intensions.  I'm still arguing, I think, for a religious life of sorts, a turn toward the sacred, even though we live in a age of suspicion toward the Divine and mistrust of institutions.   

I want to explore some religious questions that have been troubling me lately, where I've gotten things wrong over the last few years, and some hints and guesses about what's calling my name; namely some very ancient invitations...worship, prayer and sacrifice.  Enjoy!

We discuss Tony's new book, which is great (reverendhunter.com). Enjoy! 

I hope you'll appreciate this conversation with Jason Adam Miller about his new book on Jesus' most paradoxical and misunderstood words at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.  I loved this book, When the World Breaks.  I've not read anything so personal, rich and thought provoking on the Beatitudes.  It's worth your time, especially if you're interested in a way of being, more than a way of believing, a way that might well upend our frames and call us into a deeper life. Jason Adam Miller is a pastor in South Bend and someone worth paying attention to (www.jasonadammiller.com)  Enjoy! 

Here's another shorter podcast in my series Eat This Scroll, where I turn to poems, prayer, passages that have been important to me.  I hope you'll hear your own hints and guesses.  This week, we turn to Mary Oliver's classic, The Journey.  Enjoy!

I'd like to explore the possibilities, the postures, and the terrain, of feeling lost, a certain kind of lostness.  Rather than being prescriptive, I hope to just describe a little of what it's like, and a few hints and guesses from the poets and mystics, that I hope you'll find meaningful, and possibly helpful.  Enjoy.

Here's another shorter mediation on Rilke's passage about leaving home, about following a calling, the cost and terrible possibilities hidden in walking toward the East, toward a church forgotten, a sacred place ignored.  Enjoy.

For my 100th episode, I'm introducing a new dimension of the podcast, shorter mediations based on poems, passages, and prayers.  Thanks for all your support, can't believe I've made 100 episodes.  I hope you'll hear some hints and guesses in this David Whyte poem, Coleman's Bed, or in my own reflections.  Stay tuned for more shorter episodes, as well as my longer format contributions and interviews.  Special thanks to Jonas Dobson, my son, for the music.  Enjoy!

In this episode, we turn our attention again to the language of dreams, particularly the ways in which the dream experience seeks to have an effect on the dreamer.  This is really part 2 of a podcast series on dreams, the first episode being called The Language of Dreams.  Special thanks to my friend Emma who was willing to share her dream in a such a public place.  We hope it serves you in some way.  Thanks for listening and supporting.  Enjoy!

On the longest night of the year, I'd like to explore dreams, dreamwork and surrendering to the intelligence of the dream.  "We have forgotten the age old fact that God speaks primarily through dreams and visions" (C.G. Jung).  Enjoy!

Eloise Skinner's new book is called, But Are You Alive? How to Design a Life Worth Living.  In this conversation about her book, we discuss existential therapy, ancient practices, work life, monastic possibilities, and questions of meaning.  You can find her on Instagram, or through her website www.eloiseskinner.com I hope you hear some hints and guesses for your own everyday spiritual life. Enjoy!

Here's the second conversation with my wife Mandy about Israel, about the troubling questions we think this conflict raises, the hyper-charged language being used, a bit of historical context, the cultural climate of oppressor and victim, plus a few hints and guesses about deception and the power of seeking the truth.    

Here are a few thoughts and reflections about out life in Israel with my wife, Mandy.  We thought we'd share a few personal reflections about out time there, what we learned, and a bit of what we find troubling, plus a few things we've found helpful.  "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem."

"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in other to avoid facing their own souls" (C.G. Jung).  Here's the most recent way I've been thinking about Soul, along with some very personal stories.  You can check my previous podcasts, What is Soul? Part 1 and 2 if you want to see how my own thoughts have evolved and grown.  Enjoy!  

This is a further exploration of the unique ways the masculine, or the unhealthy patriarchal world, wounds the son and the daughter.  We'll explore the nature of these wounds using two ancient myths, one about a rat, and the other about the handless maiden.  Like all sacred stories, a few hints and guesses are hidden here that can help us navigate the ways our fathers are wounded, and the ways we all received wounds when we were innocent, and small, and vulnerable.  Although myths rarely spell out the path of healing explicitly, or tell us how to translate it, they nevertheless show us that healing is possible, and that our wild instinctual core can burn brightly again in our lives, opening us further to a life of value and meaning.  Enjoy!

This episode is an investigation of the father wound.  I'll be exploring our own wounded fathers, the kind of wounds the masculine receives, and the shape our our own wounds as sons and daughters in a "time of no father," to quote Robert Bly.  I'm interested here in the archetypal and mythic terrain of the wounded feeling function, as Jung calls it.  I'm relying heavily on the Robert Johnson's book The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden, as well as Iron John by Robert Bly.  I'm curious what these important myths tell us about our wounded fathers, or the wounded masculine more generally.  This is the beginning of a two-part dive into this realm.  Enjoy!   

Some personal reflections on public/private life tensions, moving to another state, thresholds spaces, and a few other things going on in my life.  Thanks for all your support.  The title is a reference to a poem by Jan Richardson called A Blessing in the Dust, which I read at the end of podcast.  Enjoy! 

Check out my conversation with Ian MacKenzie, filmmaker and creator of The Mythic Masculine Podcast.  We're experiencing a current renaissance in men's work right now, which is so important for the health and healing of our culture.  Ian has been exploring and bringing forth voices who are contributing to the conversation, and he has his own story of how the mythic masculine has been shaping his life. Check out his work at https://www.themythicmasculine.com/ 

"I do not know exactly what a prayer is.  I do know how to pay attention...how to kneel" (Mary Oliver). What do you think about prayer now, with the unraveling of religious categories, and traditional practices?  Does prayer still have a place in the spiritual life? If so, what do we mean by prayer?  Enjoy

Here's my conversation with Rebecca Wildbear about her new book Wild Yoga.  She's a guide with Animas Valley Institute, she also teaches Wild Yoga, and other soul-oriented offerings.  We discuss the art and craft of listening, the nature of prayer, and Wild Yoga as a way of being.  You can find her work at https://www.rebeccawildbear.com/ Enjoy!

Psychedelics is the hottest topic in spiritual and therapeutic circles.  Are we ready?  What are the dangers and opportunities?  Ryan Meeks and I have been wrestling with these questions for the last few years.  This podcast is an unscripted conversation about drugs between two friends, not an authoritative final word on the research, or a formula for what's best for each individual.  Ryan has a lot of experience in this world, I do not.  I hope you enjoy our back and forth, as we search for hints and guesses about what's going on.  

Here's a conversation about rituals in the modern world with my friends at Eastlake Community Church, outside of Seattle. We talk about meaning in Target, our human craving for transcendence, the Starbucks holiday cup, the Vatican, and wonder together whether or not new rituals can be created and how much of what's still available might help us.  Special thanks to Jordan Gilliam for the original soundscape, In This Together.  Find him on Instagram @jordan_tyrone78.  

Turning to the archetypal patterns of Advent, the birth of the Soul, the Christ, and the forces that try to cut us off from our radiant center, our possibilities, our creative incarnation.  Special thanks to Jordan Gilliam for the original soundscape, In This Together.  Find him on Instagram @jordan_tyrone78.  The main quote, and a few of the ideas used in this episode, comes from Trauma and the Soul, A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Human Development and its Interruption, by Donald Kalsched.  Enjoy!

Here are a few ideas, images, stories, hints and guesses, about the Feminine and Masculine, as sacred, as archetypal realities, as something we all carry in the psyche, and as something to be honor and respected.  Enjoy!

This episode is about the religious instinct, our proclivity to worship, the fact that we bow down to something, and what might happen if we consent to the inner compass which seeks ultimate meaning.

Merton, Nietzsche, Buber and a few thoughts on the opportunities when we no longer know what we mean by God.   

I'd like to turn to Thomas Merton's writings on the True Self.  I find his mystical understanding of identity to be counter-cultural, challenging and ultimately hopeful.  I hope you hear a hint or guess from Merton, as I am, for your own descent beneath the ego's demands and stances.  Enjoy!

Some reflections and an unorthodox reading of an old parable of Jesus.  Enjoy!

What is deconstruction? Or the Dark Night for that matter?  And what is it that we are being invited into, during certain seasons of life? These are only hints and guesses.  

In this wide ranging conversation, we talk about the lost art of the feminine, eros, the divine, the needed work in the world around a more sacred view of the feminine and the masculine, among other things.  This was originally recorded for the Westwords publication for Animas Valley Institute.  Check out Kate's work at dancingserpent.org, and the work of Animas at animas.org.  Enjoy!

This week is about the sacred, the holy ordinary, trees lit from within, Annie Dillard, Moses, and a few suggested practices for deepening our quality of attention.  Enjoy!

A podcast about the golden calf, the absence of God, the center which has no center, and the nutrients left in the compost heap of our spiritual ancestors.

The first in my Monday series on ancient texts, Biblical images, and the compost heap of the wisdom tradition.  This episode is a musing on Babel, power, greed, pride, Putin, borders, invasion and the Wind.  Enjoy!

Hopefully I'll step on everyone's toes, including my own.