Longer Investigations
Thematic essays on the tradition, the institution, and the practice of seeking directly.
Origen: The Heretic Who Believed God Would Win
The most learned Christian of the third century taught that every soul carries an image of God that cannot be erased, that punishment is medicine, and that in the end God will be all in all. He was tortured for the faith and died of it. Three hundred years later the church of the empire wrote his name into the list of the damned. The reasons say more about the church than about Origen.
Born at the Crossroads: The Cross You Already Are
Rudolf Steiner named two pulls on every human life — one toward pure spirit, one toward pure matter. Neither is evil; the danger is letting either win. The cross is not a burden you choose. It is the diagram of what you already are.
The Light You Did Not Kindle: The Logos of John 1 and the One Instructor
John opens his Gospel with logos — the Greek word for the ordering reason of the cosmos, fused with the Hebrew creative Word. It is a light available to everyone. What differs from life to life is what we do with it: dodge it, hide it, shield it, consume it, or reflect it.
Leo Tolstoy: Christ Without the Empire
Russia's greatest novelist read the Sermon on the Mount as though no one had read it before — and found a Christianity the institution had quietly replaced with its opposite. They excommunicated him for noticing.
Brother Lawrence: God Without the Building
A lay brother in a Carmelite monastery found continuous direct communion with God — not in the sanctuary, but in the kitchen. His mistake was writing it down.