Source: Spirituality & Practice
This e-course for Advent uses Scripture and new teachings by Fr. Thomas Keating and other mystical writers to explore the great themes of this season as they inform and enrich the contemplative life. The retreat content is shared via emails; it was originally designed to be sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, beginning on the Friday before the First Sunday in Advent. Included are links to new audio recordings of Fr. Thomas.
Learn more about this religious online course from Spirituality & Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
Practicing Spirituality with Money (Spirituality & Practice)
Source: Spirituality & Practice
All sorts of questions come to mind when we start to seriously assess the place and importance of money in our lives. As Lynne Twist of The Soul of Money Institute has said, “Money is the most universally motivating, mischievous, miraculous, maligned, and misunderstood part of contemporary life.”
Practicing Spirituality with Money looks at the attitudes toward money that we have picked up from our birth families, culture, and religious traditions. Some of us carry large burdens over having wasted, lost, or overvalued money, and we suggest ways to deal with that. Our beliefs, habits, and ideals about this medium of exchange say a lot about our deepest longings, fears, and expectations. When we consider our money, we come smack up against consumerism, shopping, and our craving for possessions and status. All that is grist for our reflections and practices.
Spiritual teachers from all the religions have plenty to say about alternatives to market values — simplicity, thrift, generosity, charity, sustainable living, gratitude, and more. They also suggest ways that money can be a carrier of our best intentions and a spur to love, commitment, and service. And best of all, they challenge us to do more spiritual practices organized around our use of money.
Practicing Spirituality with Money consists of 40 emails, each with a short excerpt from a spiritual book, along with a link to our review. We suggest a way for you to practice that thought as you go about your daily activities.
(6 CEHs for Chaplains available.)
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality & Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
Practicing Spirituality with Children (Spirituality & Practice)
Source: Spirituality & Practice
We all have been given a mission to be spiritual companions to our children, grandchildren, and young friends. There are many blessings to be shared across the generations. We also can do more to respect and cherish children’s spirituality. How do they express it? Through creativity, mystical experiences, questions, goodness, free spirit, and much more.
“Practicing Spirituality with Children” is a 40-part course delivered by email. Each email includes a short passage we’ve found in a book about children’s spirituality, or spiritual parenting, or a children’s book with a spiritual message. We’ve mixed it up and included a few passages just for your inner child. Following the quote is a practice suggestion, something you can do with children or in honor of those you’ve known, including yourself.
During this unique e-course, we explore the seeds of the sacred in a child’s everyday life; the rewards of play, humor, and joy; the pleasures of finding meaning; and the surprising rewards of attention and wonder. Being a supportive spiritual companion to a child entails setting aside our agendas; being empathetic listeners; modeling love, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness; trying not to be too controlling or protective; and being open to the mysterious movements of the Divine. And, too, we must be willing to let children be our spiritual teachers. As the late Gerald May put it, “We must trust that God’s activity in these small lives is not dependent on our interventions. God indeed has been present with these little ones all along, and with just a little encouragement, the children will gladly share that presence with us.”
(6 CEHs for Chaplains available.)
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality & Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
Practicing Spirituality at Work (Spirituality & Practice)
This e-course is specifically designed to help you practice your spirituality at work. Insights from the marvelous spiritual writers whose books we review have certainly helped us find meaning, purpose, and joy in our workdays.
In his fine book The Reinvention of Work (see below), Matthew Fox recalled the words of mystic Meister Eckhart: “The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great or good if the inward is small or of little worth.” This 40-part e-course is about doing the inner work necessary to make your outer work more meaningful.
Our teachers will be Matthew Fox, Lewis Richmond, Jeffrey Salkin, Frederick Buechner, Thomas Moore, Jose Hobday, Thomas Merton, David Whyte, Marsha Sinetar, Joan Chittister, and others. Each quote will be matched to a practice that you can do at work during the day. We’ll cover such common challenges as envy, comparisons, expectations, boredom, repetition, time, speed, and ambition, and we’ll suggest ways to practice presence, kindness, gratitude, silence, play, and joy in the workplace.
(6 CEHs for Chaplains available.)
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality & Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
Practicing Spirituality with the World’s Religions (Spirituality & Practice)
Source: Spirituality & Practice
In this 40-part e-course we will explore what Brother Wayne Teasdale named “interspirituality,” the sharing of ultimate experiences across traditions. Calling this the adventure of the 21st century, Teasdale observed that, just as a person isn’t truly educated until they know more than one language, “a person is not really fully educated, or indeed ‘religious,’ unless they are intimately aware of more than their own faith and ways of prayer.” We can deepen and enrich our own faith journey by gaining an knowledge of and appreciation for the many forms the spiritual life can take. We may even see ourselves as bees gathering honey from different flowers.
“Practicing Spirituality with the World’s Religions” includes teachings and practices from Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Sufism, Judaism, Taoism, and Native American spirituality. We draw upon the insights of interspirituality pioneers including Huston Smith, Bede Griffiths, Wayne Teasdale, Thomas Merton, and many others. Their vision of a universal commonality underlying all the religions is one we can affirm in our daily lives. The e-course illustrates it by presenting similar spiritual practices from different traditions.
The format of the e-course matches our other Practicing Spirituality programs — 40 lessons delivered via email. Each contains a short passage about the wisdom of the world’s religions as well as a way to practice that thought as you go about your daily activities. A second quote from a pioneer of interspirituality is included for you to reflect upon. Links take you to the reviews of the books where we found the passages.
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality & Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
The Blessings of Aging (Spirituality & Practice)
Source: Spirituality & Practice
There is a difference, Joan Chittister notes, between age, aging, aged, ag’ed, and ripened. Through this program, Chittister reframes aging and encourages us to discover through reflection and practice what new perceptions and attitudes about growing older can mean for our own lives.
Joan Chittister, now in her 70s, has been a Benedictine nun for 50 years and is the founder of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality. One of their projects was the basis of the S&P retreat Creating a Monastery of the Heart; this monastic movement now involves 7,500 seekers from around the world. Profiled as one of S&P’s Living Spiritual Teachers, Chittister is the author of 40 books, including The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (see below). For this online retreat, themes she introduced in that book become the launchpads for further reflections by Chittister.
Universal themes to be explored include:
• common challenges such as regret and fear;
• the quest for meaning as the passageway from doing to being;
• time as the crucible of maturity and the advantages of having a beginner’s mind;
• the joys of appreciation, understanding, and choices;
• the satisfaction and serenity of tasting the spiritual dimensions of life;
• spirituality, wisdom, and legacy.
Participants receive:
• 12 emails with links to other course content.
• Video messages from Joan Chittister.
• Additional wisdom, spiritual practices, journal prompts, and creative exercises to ground the teachings in an elder’s everyday life.
This is a glorious spiritual workshop for elders who are ready to complete in themselves all that has been neglected and postponed when they were younger — and it is for anyone of any age who is ready to embrace a vision of elderhood as a blessed time to be fully alive.
(4 CEHs for Chaplains available.)
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality & Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
The Sage’s Tao Te Ching (Spirituality and Practice)
Source: Spirituality and Practice
In his 2000 book The Sage’s Tao Te Ching, William Martin reformulated the heart of each of Lao Tzu’s poetic wisdom chapters into a reflection and insight for the older person in today’s swiftly changing society. For this e-course in Spirituality & Practice’s Elder Spirituality Project, you will receive selections from The Sage’s Tao Te Ching, along with brief comments and practice suggestions by William Martin that will help you discover the quality of “sage-ness” that already exists at the heart of your being. This is a warm and practical way to explore and experience this wisdom tradition.
William Martin is the perfect leader for this focused study of the Tao for elders. He has been exploring the wisdom of this tradition for 40 years and over the past 13 years has written popular books (see more below) that express the message of the Tao for specific audiences: The Parent’s Tao Te Ching, The Couple’s Tao Te Ching, The Sage’s Tao Te Ching, A Path and a Practice, The Tao of Forgiveness, and with his spouse Nancy, The Caregiver’s Tao Te Ching. He is profiled at S&P as a Living Spiritual Teacher.
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality and Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
Living the Hours (Spirituality and Practice)
Source: Spirituality and Practice
This e-retreat explores two questions: How can these Hours enhance our lives outside of a monastic setting? And how can they be made universal, so that people of any spiritual tradition or no tradition can experience their extraordinary value? Our explorations are based on the premise that practicing the Hours, although rooted in an ancient tradition, can work wonders for restoring our peace of mind and enjoyment of life in a fast-paced world.
When this 18-part retreat was first presented, emails were sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for six weeks. (Although for this on-demand version, you can choose your own frequency, we recommend you stick with the M-W-F schedule). The Monday emails introduce the traditional meaning of the Hours, starting with the key pivot points of dawn, noon, and dark. The Wednesday emails give us a chance to expand our consideration and, as the retreat progresses, to introduce more Hours.
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality and Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
Ways to Pray from Around the World (Spirituality and Practice)
Source: Spirituality and Practice
By viewing prayer practice more expansively, our spiritual lives can be enriched. Cross-culturally, prayer is seen as a way of setting a sacred intention, and through this e-course, you will experience how this is done in different places. This program looks at practices common to many religions, as well as some that are more distinctive to the faith traditions from which they originate.
Lessons delivered via email explore 12 different creative prayer forms, delving into their history, practice, and ways to incorporate them into your spiritual life. Among the practices are altars, despachos, God boxes, mandalas, prayer flags, and treasure maps, giving you a wide spectrum of possibilities to explore.
This e-course was created by Rev. Maggie Oman Shannon, author of several interfaith/interspiritual books (see below), including Prayers for Healing and Prayers for Hope and Comfort, as well as the guidebook The Way We Pray, on which this e-course is based. Her latest book, Crafting for Calm: Projects and Practices for Creativity and Contemplation, will be published by Viva Editions in spring 2012. She currently serves as the Spiritual Director of Unity Spiritual Center of San Francisco.
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality and Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
A Field Guide to Solitude (Spirituality and Practice)
Source: Spirituality and Practice
This e-course, A Field Guide to Solitude, shows you how to embrace solitude, whether you just occasionally find yourself alone, deliberately take some time to be alone, or live alone (which research also suggests is happening at an unprecedented rate). It is not about renouncing the world. Rather, it is about having a deeper engagement with the world by finding time to be on your own in such a way that it brings you ever closer to wholeness, wisdom, and well-being.
During the course, you will discover ways to tap the experience of solitude for the many opportunities it offers you, including self-realization, creative nurturing, psychological healing, independent travel, improved relationships, attunement to the natural world, coping with aging and death, and spiritual exploration, all of which are vital to a meaningful life. You will also learn about the difference between solitude and loneliness and about some of the perils we face when we find ourselves alone.
The e-course consists of:
• 12 emails with reflections by James Kullander on the many ways solitude is beneficial to our personal and spiritual growth.
• Suggested practices, journal prompts, creative projects, and discussion questions to help you find new insights about the pleasures and perils of solitude.
(4 CEHs for Chaplains available.)
Learn more about this course and register on Spirituality and Practice
Disclaimer: Sacred Space Online Learning (SSOL) seeks to provide individuals with information about religious, spiritual, or faith-based online resources from a variety of sources. Sacred Space Online Learning does NOT claim ownership over this online course or online offering. Sacred Space Online Learning is also NOT responsible for the accuracy of the materials, the content, the way they are advertised or taught, or the costs associated with this online course or offering. The views and opinions expressed in this online course or offering are those of the creators and/or the persons appearing in the online class or offering. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of SSOL, the OFLD, or MCC. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the creator(s) of the given online course or online offering.
