Join discussions in NY that follow Moore's books

If you live in New York City, you may want to attend Unitarian Universalist discussion meetings that include two of Thomas Moore’s books as companion volumes. According to Good News for Metro NY, Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason will lead discussion during the 2012-2013 monthly meetings of the metropolitan New York chapter of the national UU Christian Fellowship (UUCF). Meetings start 18 September 2012 at 7:30 p.m. at Community Church in midtown Manhattan. The linked notice provides contact information.

Seeking the Soul of the Gospels is the topical focus for the 2012-2013 meetings. The group will discuss the writings of Thomas Moore, as well as canonical gospels and others excluded from the Bible. Moore’s books Writing in the Sand: Jesus & the Soul of the Gospels and The Soul's Religion: Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life are recommended reading.

The linked notice states, "Our lines of inquiry will be kept open-ended, so people can explore personal concerns as well as religious matters at the MNY-UUCF chapter meetings. How can Christian witness be spiritually, intellectually, and psychologically sound, and also grounding for people who identify religiously as Unitarian Universalist? These are questions we will be asking ourselves this year." The notice ends, "Anyone with any degree of interest in the Jesus event, Christian traditions, or gospel stories is most welcome at any time, including non-UUs, too!"

Moore offers two workshops at Findhorn, Scotland

The Findhorn Foundation describes two workshops about natural magic, magia naturalis, Thomas Moore presents at its Love, Magic, Miracles conference, 29 September to 5 October 2012. Scroll down this page to the second entry for these descriptions:

1. Lessons from an Obsidian Mirror
"Thomas will introduce the scrying mirror and show how to use it. He will also explore lessons to be learned from the mirror about being in the world as a magus.

This workshop will focus on a magical rather than a rationalistic way of life. It will explore the use of dreams, the arts, deep intuition, prophecy and simple trance as ways of living more deeply, more in touch with the defining currents of life."

2. The Spirituality of Jesus
"This workshop comes from his recent book Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. It offers a fresh view of what Jesus was all about — nothing to do with religion but a new way of being in the world. His work involves new translations of key words and a view of Jesus' stories and teachings as all focused on the new world or kingdom he spells out.

This is a Jesus spirituality especially for those who have abandoned Christianity or have little or no interest in it. Thomas treats the Gospels as being completely separate from Christianity, though he preserves what he considers the best in Christian tradition as well. He has made a new translation from Greek of the New Testament Gospels and will use these for this workshop."

A two-page .pdf brochure for the conference lists all teachers. Early online registration is advised.

Barque coverage
18 Feb 2012 "Moore visits Findhorn for Love, Magic, Miracles"

Any tradition may read Gospels as spiritual texts

In a May 2011 issue of The Magazine of Yoga, editor Susan Maier-Moul reviews Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and and the Soul of the Gospels under the headline, "Book Review: Writing in the Sand ".

She suggests:

"In Writing in the Sand Thomas Moore develops a view of the Jesus gospels as spiritual texts rather than as Christian history or a biography of an historical Christ.

Using techniques of inquiry familiar to anyone who has read his Care of the Soul including respect for metaphor, skill in holding both rationality and literality in check, and a careful review of context, Moore brings a focus on the message of the Gospels through the culture and ideas that were in play at the time these texts were written."

Maier-Moul draws attention to Moore's focus on transformation, shamanism in the Gospels and his sensitivity to language in this book. She includes:

"We are accustomed to the misleading notions of our modern dualism, drawing wiggle-room distinctions between body and mind, or the world 'out there' and its meaning to us internally. Even when we are trying to work with new ideas, the available language is hard to use in a way that really expresses what we experience or suspect.

Moore brings his characteristically responsible use of language to bear on such issues, distinguishing meaning, for example, as something we create, not something that pre-exists our need for it. Spiritual texts don’t tell us what the world means, Writing in the Sand suggests; instead, they wake us up, forcing a change to accepted ideas in shocking ways. We see that our expectations and fear create meaning, that meaning emanates from us, rather than standing outside us."

For the same issue, Maier-Moul writes the editorial "Reading Jesus as a Yogi" in which she references Moore's translation of the Gospels. She shares about herself, "Yoga teaches me to notice and deal with my aversions. I have an aversion to Jesus-speak as wide as a semi using two lanes on I95. ... I’ve been wondering if it would be possible for me to read the ideas put forth by Jesus with my same open mindedness about how to apply them and my equally useful, same skepticism about their translations into contemporary English as I do yoga and Buddhism texts." She suggests such a possibility exists, based on Moore's translation.

E-course with Thomas Moore starts Wednesday

Thomas Moore's e-course with Spirituality & Practice starts this Wednesday, 9 March 2011. Sign up now to start the Lenten program on Ash Wednesday. According to Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat:

"[Moore] makes suggestions for how we can inhabit the Gospels, and we are already looking forward to your shares in the online Practice Circle about these practices and mini-projects. To give you some examples from the first few days: we'll listen for an invitation from an angel; we'll practice being a net; we'll play around with words with the same root as "enemy"; we'll reflect upon the Kingdom as a circle with its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere; and we'll try to write a really short prayer. Then, to supplement the 40 daily emails, Moore has recorded audio and video lessons which we'll post in the Practice Circle during the Sundays of Lent. And he will also be available to answer our questions and listen to our responses in two live teleconferences."

The two live hour-long teleconferences with Thomas Moore are Wednesday 30 March and Wednesday 20 April 20, 9 p.m.-10 p.m. Eastern Time. They'll be recorded for later listening. This e-course ends Easter Sunday 24 April 2011. Registration is $49.95.

Spirituality and Practice hosts Moore e-course

Spirituality and Practice offers a new e-course with Thomas Moore, The Spirituality of the Gospels to begin Ash Wednesday (9 March) and to end Easter Sunday (24 April). Each daily "email includes a Gospel passage, a commentary on it by Thomas Moore, a practice to bring the teaching into your daily life, and a suggested creative project."

In addition to the daily email, the course includes:
• Weekly audios from Thomas Moore on a key theme in the Gospels.
• Two live hour-long teleconferences with Thomas Moore during which he will answer our questions and engage in dialogue.
• Access to an online Practice Circle where we can share responses to the texts and our experiences with the practices and creative projects with a worldwide community of spiritual seekers.

9 March  —  24 April, 2011
Cost: $49.95
Subscribe online now, or give this e-course as a gift, or do both.

"Using his fertile imagination, drawing upon his own translations of the Gospels, [Thomas Moore] offers fresh interpretations to deepen and enliven anyone's spiritual life. Calling the texts "intelligent, challenging, and incredibly inspiring," Moore encourages us to take to heart the stories and distinctive imagery of the Gospels and the many insights to be found there about the central themes of the human adventure. He explores how Jesus gives us a rounded and ripe sense of the kingdom of God; challenges our long-accepted ideas about purity, wealth, and power; and gives us parables that turn things upside down. Sayings by and stories about Jesus model a path of love, empathy, sharing, self-possession, sensuality, and treating all people well."

Schumacher College shares Moore's Gospel talk

Schumacher College offers Thomas Moore's slide presentation, Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels delivered 13 May 2009 during one of the college's Open Evening sessions.

This video is approximately 54 minutes.

Moore wants genius of Gospels to sparkle

On 23 April 2010 Barque announced an interview with Thomas Moore by Kay Parris for Reform magazine that is sponsored by the United Reformed Church. This interview "Transcending Unconsciousness" is now available online.

Parris writes, "As a life-long student of world religions, Moore doesn’t see the Gospels as more important than other holy texts – all are "writings from time immemorial that try to express the mysteries of the spiritual life". But he does feel that, if the "moralism and judgementalism" of hundreds of years of translation and interpretation could only be cleaned away, the genius of the Gospels would be allowed to sparkle into life in a way that could be truly liberating, illuminating and "useful for the world". To that end, he has now set himself the task of producing a fresh translation from the Greek."

Responding to Parris’s question about the existence of "a power beyond ourselves that is both natural and supernatural," Moore shares:

"You’re asking the most difficult question of all. Language fails us at this point. The way I see it for myself, if someone asks me do you believe in God, I would say yes, but I would probably not mean the same thing that most people would mean.

I believe the theology I find, in both east and west religions, that says God is unknowable, is mysterious. I believe we face mysteries in this life that we don’t understand. When you look into the sky, whether it’s the night sky or the day sky, you are looking into a great mystery that surrounds us. It is both a metaphor and also a direct experience of that sky. We wonder what’s out there, what is beyond us. And I don’t want to give any answers to what we don’t know. I don’t see any point in trying to make up answers to those questions.

I think what religion should be doing is helping us relate to those questions – giving us some language that doesn’t explain the mysteries, but rather allows us to relate to them."

For a follow-up question, Moore addresses his interest in Jungian psychology:

"Jungian psychology has helped me a great deal, although I am not a Jungian psychologist and I see great limitations in it as a system. But there are a great many insights there that helped me tremendously to have an appreciation for mystery."

In a recent post under Dark Nights of the Soul on his Discussion forum, Moore also writes about his interest in Jung's ideas.

Hay House shares "Straight from the heart"

Hay House's Heal Your Life offers the excerpt, "Straight from the Heart" from Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand (2010). While describing his own heart issues, Moore writes,

"I find that in this time of personal threat it isn’t easy to follow the way of Jesus in the garden — entering fully into my fears and my own will and then capitulating to the design life has for me. Is there anything quite as difficult as attuning your desires to those of the life flowing freely through you? To say, “Whatever you want of me, I submit.”

My own wish to enjoy the full flow of my life, to be there with my wife and children as they mature, now meets a blockage in a main artery of the heart, where life has failed to flow and where death clearly has an entry. My own desires are clear, but I can only wait and watch for signs of the father’s intentions. How difficult it is to pray, 'Not my desires, but yours, be fulfilled.'"

Moore includes the healing presence of nature in this section.

Morality acknowledges the complexities of life

Hay House offers an excerpt from Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand titled "Healing the Soul of Society" on its Heal Your Life site. In this passage, Moore contrasts moralism with morality:

"A moralistic attitude, which is yet another byproduct of materialism and egotism, sees everything in terms of black and white, good and bad. It fills courtrooms and builds prisons instead of clinics and hospitals.

It is blind to the complexities of a life. Because it believes it perceives evil clearly, it can make laws for every complicated aspect of human life and then punish those who break the laws, irrespective of their motives and emotional stability. It can’t distinguish between bad behavior and sickness of soul.

A moral attitude is quite different. It considers the conditions under which people make bad decisions and dally with criminality and resort to violence. It sorts out the context of bad behavior and tries to heal conflicted emotions, twisted histories, and misguided views. Rather than punish individuals, it works toward a healed society."

Moore stresses that "... the soul and spirit also require proper nourishment."

Join Thomas Moore at Omega, July 2-4, 2010

Watch a YouTube video of Thomas Moore exploring ideas from Writing in the Sand at a recent Kripalu workshop.
Video: 4 minutes 21 seconds
Omega's Thomas Moore profile

"Thomas Moore, PhD, is the author of Care of the Soul and 16 other books on spirituality and soulful living. Because of his deep appreciation for the world’s spiritual traditions, especially Buddhism, he often refers to himself as a "Zen Catholic."

"Moore lived in a monastic-style Catholic religious order for 13 years and has been a psychotherapist for 30 years, writing about and practicing archetypal psychology. He holds a doctorate degree in religious studies as well as degrees in theology and music, and lectures widely on spirituality, archetypal psychology, and medicine. In his book, Writing in the Sand, he returns to his roots, bringing his knowledge of religion and depth psychology to a fresh interpretation that accents the unique spirituality in the Gospels."

To register for this program, visit Jesus Spirituality & the Soul of the Gospels at Omega Institute.

Live life as deus humanus, be a divine human

Omega Institute offers an excerpt from Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels which won the Best Spiritual Book Award in the 2010 Books for a Better Life Awards competition sponsored by the Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society. This excerpt includes Moore's views about the Gospels' relevance for today:

"How, then, do you live the Gospel spirit today? You do exactly what the gospel says: Firstly, you cultivate a deep respect for people who are not of your circle and whom society rejects. I speak of respect rather than love, because love is too easily sentimentalized and because agape is about respect and affection rather than melodramatic emotion. Secondly, you do everything possible to deal effectively with demonic urges in yourself and in society. You do something about aggression, paranoia, narcissism, greed, jealousy, and violence. You live with a mindset that doesn't justify such things but seeks alternatives. Thirdly, you play the role of healer in every situation. The word therapy appears 47 times in the New Testament — you adopt a therapeutic posture in the style of Jesus the healer. In all your work and interactions, you take the role of healer. Finally, you say awake and don't fall into the unconsciousness of the age. You also help others wake up to a thoughtful life imagined in fresh, original, and convivial ways."

Thomas Moore teaches Jesus Spirituality and the Soul of the Gospels with his wife, Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa at Omega's Rhinebeck, New York location from July 2 to July 4, 2010. Click this link for registration details.

Writing in the Sand wins spirituality book award

Thomas Moore's latest book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels wins this year's spirituality book award in the 2010 Books for a Better Life Awards competition sponsored by the Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society. Winners were announced at a celebration dinner last night at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City.

Learn with Moore at Omega retreat, July 2010

Thomas Moore and his wife offer a weekend retreat with Omega's Rhinebeck, New York community starting 2 July 2010. According to Omega, while exploring Jesus Spirituality & the Soul of the Gospels, "Moore and his wife, Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa, guide us through meditation, chant, communal reflection, self-examination, reading, and walking meditation as we open to the joy of human life and relationship, and discover a spirituality of the divine that never conflicts with the pleasures of our earthly existence."

Date: July 2 - 4, 2010
Location: Rhinebeck, New York
Tuition: $295 U.S. (Members: $270 U.S.)
Course: SM10-2502-148
Register online and click links for accommodation
and commuter fees.
Recommended reading for this program:
Thomas Moore, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels (2009), published by Hay House.

Moore's Writing in the Sand is book award finalist

Thomas Moore's latest book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels, published by Hay House, is one of five finalists in the best Spiritual Book category for the 14th annual Books for a Better Life Awards. Winners will be announced Monday 22 February 2010 during an awards ceremony at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City.

Writing in the Sand wins an award from Spirituality and Practice as one of the best Spiritual books of 2009 (Category: Jesus), as announced on Barque at the beginning of this month.

Moore's earlier book, Dark Nights of the Soul, published by Gotham Books, won the best Psychology Book award in 2005 in the Books for a Better Life Awards, also announced on Barque.

For the Books for a Better Life Awards, five finalists are selected from nearly 500 entries for each of the ten categories.

Metanoia initiates a new way to be in the world

RJ, a minister with the United Church of Christ shares sermon notes for January 17 in his post, "Living as new wine" in which he refers to Thomas Moore's description of the wedding in Cana in Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. A 37 second YouTube video titled Surprise, shows Moore talking about metanoia, a radical shift in awareness. RJ quotes Moore's book:

"But Jesus demonstrates that in the kingdom of God, marriage is one of the prime settings in which the transformation from plain living to new vision can take place. It is where the water becomes wine... it is where our raw and untested lives take on new complexity and richness through sharing and struggle... it is where, like grape juice turning to wine, our separateness is broken down as we discover the mystery of a shared life."

RJ considers additional connections between marriage and different types of relationships. Viewers also can access a 28 second clip of Moore describing the emotion of longing -- an emotion that he says makes us human.

Listen to Moore's archived program about Jesus

Today, Amy Miller hosts Thomas Moore on Connect as he talks about his latest book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. According to the Connect site, "Thomas discusses how, regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, one can make the Gospels an important source of their spiritual life and practice." This archived program is available as Windows Media Streaming, Open (stream) with QuickTime or an MP3 Download.

Give yourself a treat for seasonal contemplation

Thomas Moore's site, careofthesoul.net will send you an unpublished 19-page chapter for his book, Writing in the Sand, after you register for this free .pdf download with your name and email address. The chapter, "No Room in the Inn" explores the birth of Jesus, emphasizing nature, magic, inclusivity and the ways of the kingdom. Visit Moore's homepage for instructions.

Moore suggests, "Jesus also represents the possibility of a transfiguration of human life. It is possible to transcend corruption and violence on a cultural level. It is possible for genuine community to succeed. But this good outcome entails a spiritualization of the ordinary, an interpenetration of ideals and ordinary situations. God becomes human so that humans can become divine: the two-sided mystery of incarnation. [John Moriarty]"

A few pages after this passage, Moore writes, "The traditional Christmas crèche is more than a sentimental nod to virtues of peace and brotherhood. The combination of manger, animals, magic, star, and angels perfectly pictures the scope of the Jesus event from the very beginning. He is deeply human and alarmingly humble. But he is also a turning-point in the development of the human species, indeed of the cosmos itself, according to [Teilhard de] Chardin. The challenge is to embrace a spirituality of such scope and radical implications. How can each of us be completely human, foolishly humble, and imaginative enough to see our roles in the unfolding of human potentiality?"

Register to download the chapter. Read Moore’s reflections.

Enjoy the treat of a monastic, weekend retreat

Thomas Moore and his wife, Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa, offer a weekend retreat at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, from March 26 to March 28, 2010: ”Jesus Spirituality and the Soul of the Gospels”.

The program description promises, "Through the monastic practices of meditation, chant, communal reflection, self-examination, spiritual reading, and silent walking meditation, you will open to the joy of human life and relationship."

Moore’s 2009 book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels, published by Hay House, is required reading for this retreat and participants are to bring copies of the book with them. Click the link for more information about this Kripalu program, including pricing and accommodation arrangements.

Meet Moore at Riverrun Bookstore, October 21

Riverrun Bookstore hosts Thomas Moore on Wednesday 21 October, 2009 at 7 p.m. when he talks about his book, Writing in the Sand. This nonfiction work is Moore's interpretation of the Gospels’ meaning ― an approach not only for Christians, but for anyone seeking spiritual insight in the texts. This event is free and open to the public.

Riverrun Bookstore
20 Congress St.,
Portsmouth, NH 03801
603 431-2100
www.riverrunbookstore.com

Attend Moore's event in London on Sept. 7

St. Jame's Church, Piccadilly, London, England hosts Thomas Moore's public presentation Writing in the Sand on Monday 7 September 2009, starting at 7:00 p.m.

According to the linked promotion,

"This evening Thomas Moore uses depth psychology, mythology, and spirituality to present a faith in tune with 21st century values. Thomas finds striking new meaning in the rich stories and imagery of the Gospels, recasting Jesus not as a teacher of morals and beliefs, but as a spiritual reformer and visionary. He explains how you can “enter the kingdom” by respecting those who are not in your circle, being a healing presence in every situation, reconciling your sexuality with your spirituality, and by waking up from the cultural unconsciousness around you. Thomas also discuss the important Gospel figure of the much misunderstood Mary Magdalene. This evening offers an original and fresh look at re-imagining your spiritual life."

Online booking is available through the linked page.