Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    <scribbled by dfowlkes>
  

    

Thanks!
  

    
By the say, I sincerely hope that the other 4 books I sent to the
InkWell also get passed along to folks who might make good use of them.
Please pass along any related stories or subsequent feedback.

An update: I have started the follow-up/companion book to GB for adult
men.  I hope we can have another such conversation on that book
sometime, as well... 
  

    <scribbled by wooly Sun 6 Jul 08 21:09>
  

    
Thanks for offering this here.  I will work something up.
  

    
Would You Share a Wondrous Moment in Your Life?

A call for contributions to a book on religious tolerance.

By David Hafter, MFT

        Wondrous Moments and other Commonalities: Expanding the Spiritual
Umbrella is the working title of my new book for which I am soliciting
your anecdotal contribution.  Designed as a response to recent tomes
extolling the very real and obvious dangers of religious dogma and the
intolerance it breeds (God is not Great: How Religion Poisons
Everything by Christopher Hitchens and The End of Faith by Sam Harris),
Wondrous Moments takes a wide-angle approach to the topic of
spirituality, of which organized religion is just a part, in order to
save the baby from being lost along with the bathwater.

        In Wondrous Moments, I point out the commonalities of our powerful,
emotional and spiritual experiences, what I call Wondrous Moments, and
the spiritual or secular templates we use to overlay and explain them
to ourselves. The variety of these templates tend to separate us from
one another, sometimes peacefully with no real consequences, but too
often just the opposite, with escalating degrees of negativity and
hostility from feelings of suspiciousness and unfriendly behaviors all
the way to violence, including murder and ending with genocide.  

Those of us whose spiritual experiences do not fit neatly, or at all,
into conventional religious garments are pushed out from underneath the
collective spiritual umbrella. Wondrous Moments is a strategic attempt
to widen this umbrella.  I focus on a person’s behavior rather than
his or her beliefs, an approach from my field of psychology, religion’s
long disenfranchised and near-silent partner – the head to its heart –
the two often separated by dogma, fear and superstition.

The spiritual umbrella in America is indeed small with many people
left out in the rain. Imagine the miniscule lifespan of a presidential
campaign whose candidate claims to be “spiritual but not religious” or,
worse yet, claims no religious faith at all.  S/he could be a war
hero, be clutching a handful of PhD’s and be known to have a solid
history of public service and personal generosity and still be seen by
the majority of voters as unsuitable for the office of president.  

Consider the following quote which opens chapter one:

In talking with Jim many times, I’m convinced we have had very similar
experiences on our flights but we explain it quite differently. He
explains his in terms of traditional religious formalism and I tend not
to do that.  I tend to try and think in terms not only of science but
in terms of new structures for explaining the subjective experience.

-- From a televised interview with Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Lunar
Module Pilot, whose explorations in psychic phenomena led him, post
flight, to found the Institute for Noetic Sciences, describing the
emotionally powerful in-flight experience he shared with Jim Irwin,
Apollo 15 Lunar Module Pilot, who, upon his own return from the moon,
devoted the rest of his life to searching for the remains of Noah’s
Ark.

        As clear and compelling an intellectual case as has been made by
other works I have cited here for relegating conventional religion to
the museum shelf, that’s not likely to happen – not just any time soon
but ever.  Why? It is the undeniable reality and power of our
first-hand spiritual experiences and the way we explain those
experiences to ourselves which cement in our hearts and minds both
their source and meaning.  

     I propose that we adjust the expectations we have of our
religions, belief systems and philosophies of life so that what we
share in common eclipses the dogmatic differences placed between us by
them.
  
     Towards that end, I am soliciting brief descriptions of your
personal Wondrous Moments as real-life illustrations of the
commonalities we share: our Wondrous Moments.  What exactly constitutes
a Wondrous Moment?  The umbrella is purposefully wide.  From the
introduction:

  … what we share in common are what I call Wondrous Moments: those
magical experiences that defy ordinary explanation but are real to us
nonetheless.  They are our little miracles, near-misses, epiphanies,
“aha!” moments, amazing and unimaginable coincidences, too-lucky
breaks, psychic experiences both while we are awake and in our dreams
and other awe-inspiring, logic-defying moments that stop us dead in our
tracks and leave us in true wonder and mindful appreciation. 

The text will gain richness with the assistance of your illustrative
anecdotes and readers will find commonalities between themselves and
you, their neighbors, friends, relatives and co-workers.  Together,
with a wider view on spirituality that emphasizes actions over beliefs,
we can indeed stretch the spiritual umbrella to include everyone.

If you wish to be a part of this undertaking, please describe in fewer
than 100 words a Wondrous Moment you have had and its effect on your
life.  You will not be identified by more than your first name, age and
occupation (anonymous can replace your name, if you wish).  There is
no financial compensation being offered for your contribution.  Please
include your full name and contact information so that final permission
to use your contribution can be secured prior to publishing.

Please contact me directly with contributions or questions through by
web address:

pamdavidnoah@sbcglobal.net 

Thank-you for your consideration,

David Hafter, MFT
  

    
Hi PJM,

I look forward to your reading contribution.  I had to scribble my
original posting due to an embarrassing typo or two and a couple of
dyslexic word reversals.  It is reposted after your comment on joining
in...

David