Excellent idea. In addition to your material, I've been listening to LOS and WCOG podcasts and reading Fr John Strickland's books (as well as books by Frs ASD and SDY). It's all excellent material, but the "whole point" is not simply more data in my brain. I keep wondering, "Now what?"
One the one hand, it's rather like the Gentiles coming into the Church: Oh, those are demons - not God. Everything must change. But change how?
On the other hand, I fear my own internal tendency to LARP. To make an example of something that came up a few weeks ago: you said an example of secularism is imagining that everything runs on "laws" and sometimes God comes down and does a miracle, but then things go back to "normal" afterwords. Thanks to conversations here it now it makes sense to me that the "Laws of the Universe" pattern is secular. Yet should I counteract that idea (in my own head) by adopting a pre-modern mindset about Angels moving the planets? Should that knowledge change my prayer life?
I don't know how to best ask the questions because I'm still trying to figure out what all this stuff is for.
Honestly I don’t know outside of just thinking about the differences between what a kid may be able to grasp and what an adult might be able to grasp given age and experience, not that a child or teenager can be “wise beyond his years” or an adult can’t be “childish”. Perhaps in terms of giving examples and relatability. Not that I know anything about teaching!
Fantastic idea! I’d definitely be interested! I’ve already read the “Journey to Reality” 2 times: one on my own and another - with my son, and I can see great value in a practical course like this.
Very cool. How old is your son and what parts have been resonant with him? I'm considering doing two different versions of the course, one for adults and one for teens. Any thoughts on what would differentiate the two?
Sorry for a delay, somehow managed to get sick in the middle of the week. I do also believe that a separate version of the course for teens is essential: even though I thought initially that the “Journey to Reality” is written in a very accessible language, my son struggled through most of the concepts (he is 14), and I had to interrupt my reading often in order to try to provide explanations in my own words throughout the book. Part 1 (The Foundations) was the easiest for him to understand. The second part - The Sacramental was more challenging, especially the chapters on sacramental thinking and being. The Life of the Church and The Bible and the Church chapters were again more easier to grasp for him, with the rest of Part 2 challenging enough that we decided it would be wise to stop reading at that point (he was loosing interest quickly by then too).
I’m very interested in this. I do think that a pre-catechism is becoming more and more required. Something to assess and uncover the various secular cultural premises we all unconsciously live by.
Anything that could help the average person assess and discover these unconscious beliefs and then some practical tools on how to shift their thinking and how to embody that change. “How then shall we live?”
I think either/both might be useful as different ways of engaging will hit different for different people. While my default is something more embodied vs merely intellectual reflection as I’m excited by the idea of exercises/activities.
I am 100% interested! I was on the Q&A for the punks and monks book club - and I’ve been waiting for this post! I am a homeschool mom but I also host a casual homeschool orthodox “co-op” for the families at my parish. We are actually using your book to lay out general ideas for the kids, and I’ve been trying to come up with ideas of introducing certain things for elementary aged kids. A few of the moms have already read the book and they’ll probably read through it with their older kids! I would love to be a part of this project and give back any feedback! I could probably also present this as a resource for my parishes “family nights” where we hold classes for adults and kids.
Very cool! Could you say more about what sorts of things you think would be valuable for elementary-age kids? I would assume that it at least means something like age-appropriate discussion questions, with discussion led by an adult, as opposed to (for example) private journalling prompts that you might give to a teenager. Say more about types of exercises suited for younger kids and/or types of resources to help the parents.
Yes, so in my home we do a lot of verbal narration. So I would see us watching the content together (or reading it together) then instead of the kids writing down reflections in a journal they could narrate back to me, in their own words, what we had just heard. Then go through the prompts verbally together. My son is 9 and he has a surprisingly large capacity for complex themes. But I think introducing them to the sacramental way of thinking in this way, and being brought up in the church, they take on this mindset very naturally. At least in my experience. It would be cool to have the kids point to experiences in their lives, probably exactly like an adult would write down and reflect in a journal. You might not even need to adjust the questions, you could have broad discussion questions that could be easy to chew on for everyone then a "deep dive" discussion question for more complicated ideas. With the analogy in the book about the power strip, kids can easily point to things we do everyday to try to "plug in" to God. Then a more mature kid or adult could go further and reflect on areas that keep us from plugging in or the effects of not being plugged in. (just thinking off the top of my head) and if you threw in quotes that tied into the daily lesson that would make an easy copy work assignment too. And challenges aimed at individuals then maybe a challenge that could be taken on by a family or a group.
I'm interested! Would you consider doing a zoom or livestream where the class could meet as a group? It could be weekly or even every other week. I think it would help pull it together for people and add a nice interactive element. Love the focus on putting things into practice. Looking forward to it!
Because the course would be asynchronous, not everyone would be at the same point in the course on any given day/week, so I'm not sure that that part would work. Maybe I could offer a bulk package where a group of people takes the class at the same time and then meets up over Zoom with me?
Ah okay, yeah if you offer it as a group course then it could work. But no worries if you keep just asynchronous. Will look forward to participating either way!
My catechism involved reading "The Faith" by Clark Carlton and discussing the end of chapter questions every week as a group.
What I find unique about what you're doing is you pull the concepts I've learned about and you bring them into the "now". This has helped me understand how to apply what the church teaches, not just understand what the church teaches.
I would definitely want to participate in a class like this. I would be interested in what a non-secular life would look like for non-monastics. In addition to the reflection and challenge, a vignette of what the challenge looks like in the secular versus the non-secular. IE how others are living the challenge presented. Also - how it looks can be different in different stages of life. How does it play out with a young single life, newly married, raising children, empty nest, widowed...etc) The stages may be a big ask, but I've enjoyed what you have presented and appreciate how open you are to teaching your audience the topics in which we are interested. Thank you for all your work!
In addition, as far as format is concerned, I recently participated in a class by Cynthia Damaskos and Molly Sabourin with a guest instructor. The class is called Back to Basics. It is a 10 week class which can be taken at your own pace and includes hands on demonstrations of the topics covered and a weekly zoom call to discuss the weekly topic. You might want to check in with them for more details about how it is structured and see if it could work for your class. (Cynthia and Molly have the Filled with Less podcast on AFR.)
TL;DR I would absolutely be interested in piloting a course like this!
My experience has been similar to Huw's earlier comment. I feel like I have properly become convinced of the limitations, biases, and falsehoods inherent to the modern secular worldview, and am clear on the NEED for an enchanted worldview, but don't understand how to take that next step and really "see the world" through those eyes. A great example is something that was discussed during the episode on the Faustian Age, about how demons and spiritual beings were seen by the ancients as being fundamental to the fabric of reality somehow—"elemental", perhaps like what Huw said about the angels. What does that really mean metaphysically or ontologically? Right now I feel like I'm juggling two separate worldviews in my head, rather than one unified framework.
After several decades of reflection, it has become apparent that secularization is an evil that sucks the life out of our awareness of the Transcendent. Understanding secularization will entail the reconsideration of terms and their referents and how these have been de-transcendentalized by our social milieu with the result being that we think of them as being devoid of the Transcendent altogether. For example, "history"--which we normally think of as being a science of past events--has unseen dimensions to it as I discovered, but not easily. Since I was a kid, I was drawn to history and archaeology. My professional training both introduced me to methods for studying the past while quietly suppressing questions beyond those that were sanctioned. Despite this, I continued to suspect that there was something more that was being suppressed by the regnant orthodoxy. This was driven home when I was employed by the MS Department of Archives and History and became involved in interpreting history to the public. This went beyond the usual methodological concerns with past events and raised the question of "what does history MEAN to people?" I recognized in the experience of old buildings and historic sites a form of the experience of the sacred. I pointed this out in a number of publications but my colleagues would have nothing of it, because it implied that government agencies were involved with religion, and they found this possibility to be quite troubling in that it implied that the old "wall of separation" between state and religion had been breached, if not found to be an illusion that all were forced to believe in and act on (a la the emperor's new clothes). This points to concrete aspects of human experience that should be addressed in terms of the way in which secularization impacts them.
Good idea. Have you spent any time in A Course In Miracles? It’s very comprehensive and simple but powerful truths from which to follow. It is dense with information and practical as a guide between ourselves and God. I recommend reading it as you evolve. 👊🏻❤️
I don't like the name of the course. People cannot actively unlearn but they can learn new information that makes previous connections deteriorate as they become inactive.
Intuition and discernment - Compile a few tests with multiple choice questions, i.e. "Which of the following options aligns most closely with the teachings of Jesus?" And then you list four similarly worded options. As they think through options, they are forced to reason through versions of who Jesus is, who Jesus isn't, what Jesus would teach, what Jesus wouldn't teach. They develop discernment. This is a phenomenal idea if properly executed. I used to play around with ChatGPT but it won't be of much help. It'll tend toward linguistic variation and that's not what is required.
Excellent idea. In addition to your material, I've been listening to LOS and WCOG podcasts and reading Fr John Strickland's books (as well as books by Frs ASD and SDY). It's all excellent material, but the "whole point" is not simply more data in my brain. I keep wondering, "Now what?"
One the one hand, it's rather like the Gentiles coming into the Church: Oh, those are demons - not God. Everything must change. But change how?
On the other hand, I fear my own internal tendency to LARP. To make an example of something that came up a few weeks ago: you said an example of secularism is imagining that everything runs on "laws" and sometimes God comes down and does a miracle, but then things go back to "normal" afterwords. Thanks to conversations here it now it makes sense to me that the "Laws of the Universe" pattern is secular. Yet should I counteract that idea (in my own head) by adopting a pre-modern mindset about Angels moving the planets? Should that knowledge change my prayer life?
I don't know how to best ask the questions because I'm still trying to figure out what all this stuff is for.
Cool idea. I’d be part of it. Maybe consider one for kids/teens and one for adults?
I like this idea. What sort of difference you have in mind between the two?
Honestly I don’t know outside of just thinking about the differences between what a kid may be able to grasp and what an adult might be able to grasp given age and experience, not that a child or teenager can be “wise beyond his years” or an adult can’t be “childish”. Perhaps in terms of giving examples and relatability. Not that I know anything about teaching!
Fantastic idea! I’d definitely be interested! I’ve already read the “Journey to Reality” 2 times: one on my own and another - with my son, and I can see great value in a practical course like this.
Very cool. How old is your son and what parts have been resonant with him? I'm considering doing two different versions of the course, one for adults and one for teens. Any thoughts on what would differentiate the two?
Sorry for a delay, somehow managed to get sick in the middle of the week. I do also believe that a separate version of the course for teens is essential: even though I thought initially that the “Journey to Reality” is written in a very accessible language, my son struggled through most of the concepts (he is 14), and I had to interrupt my reading often in order to try to provide explanations in my own words throughout the book. Part 1 (The Foundations) was the easiest for him to understand. The second part - The Sacramental was more challenging, especially the chapters on sacramental thinking and being. The Life of the Church and The Bible and the Church chapters were again more easier to grasp for him, with the rest of Part 2 challenging enough that we decided it would be wise to stop reading at that point (he was loosing interest quickly by then too).
I’m very interested in this. I do think that a pre-catechism is becoming more and more required. Something to assess and uncover the various secular cultural premises we all unconsciously live by.
Anything that could help the average person assess and discover these unconscious beliefs and then some practical tools on how to shift their thinking and how to embody that change. “How then shall we live?”
Do you think that written reflection is a good format? Something like journaling prompts? How about daily exercises / tasks / etc.?
I think either/both might be useful as different ways of engaging will hit different for different people. While my default is something more embodied vs merely intellectual reflection as I’m excited by the idea of exercises/activities.
I am 100% interested! I was on the Q&A for the punks and monks book club - and I’ve been waiting for this post! I am a homeschool mom but I also host a casual homeschool orthodox “co-op” for the families at my parish. We are actually using your book to lay out general ideas for the kids, and I’ve been trying to come up with ideas of introducing certain things for elementary aged kids. A few of the moms have already read the book and they’ll probably read through it with their older kids! I would love to be a part of this project and give back any feedback! I could probably also present this as a resource for my parishes “family nights” where we hold classes for adults and kids.
Very cool! Could you say more about what sorts of things you think would be valuable for elementary-age kids? I would assume that it at least means something like age-appropriate discussion questions, with discussion led by an adult, as opposed to (for example) private journalling prompts that you might give to a teenager. Say more about types of exercises suited for younger kids and/or types of resources to help the parents.
Yes, so in my home we do a lot of verbal narration. So I would see us watching the content together (or reading it together) then instead of the kids writing down reflections in a journal they could narrate back to me, in their own words, what we had just heard. Then go through the prompts verbally together. My son is 9 and he has a surprisingly large capacity for complex themes. But I think introducing them to the sacramental way of thinking in this way, and being brought up in the church, they take on this mindset very naturally. At least in my experience. It would be cool to have the kids point to experiences in their lives, probably exactly like an adult would write down and reflect in a journal. You might not even need to adjust the questions, you could have broad discussion questions that could be easy to chew on for everyone then a "deep dive" discussion question for more complicated ideas. With the analogy in the book about the power strip, kids can easily point to things we do everyday to try to "plug in" to God. Then a more mature kid or adult could go further and reflect on areas that keep us from plugging in or the effects of not being plugged in. (just thinking off the top of my head) and if you threw in quotes that tied into the daily lesson that would make an easy copy work assignment too. And challenges aimed at individuals then maybe a challenge that could be taken on by a family or a group.
I'm interested! Would you consider doing a zoom or livestream where the class could meet as a group? It could be weekly or even every other week. I think it would help pull it together for people and add a nice interactive element. Love the focus on putting things into practice. Looking forward to it!
Because the course would be asynchronous, not everyone would be at the same point in the course on any given day/week, so I'm not sure that that part would work. Maybe I could offer a bulk package where a group of people takes the class at the same time and then meets up over Zoom with me?
Ah okay, yeah if you offer it as a group course then it could work. But no worries if you keep just asynchronous. Will look forward to participating either way!
I'd definitely pay for a course like this.
My catechism involved reading "The Faith" by Clark Carlton and discussing the end of chapter questions every week as a group.
What I find unique about what you're doing is you pull the concepts I've learned about and you bring them into the "now". This has helped me understand how to apply what the church teaches, not just understand what the church teaches.
So you're looking forward to examples, practices, exercises, etc., very much rooted in our daily lived experience as secular modern people?
I would definitely want to participate in a class like this. I would be interested in what a non-secular life would look like for non-monastics. In addition to the reflection and challenge, a vignette of what the challenge looks like in the secular versus the non-secular. IE how others are living the challenge presented. Also - how it looks can be different in different stages of life. How does it play out with a young single life, newly married, raising children, empty nest, widowed...etc) The stages may be a big ask, but I've enjoyed what you have presented and appreciate how open you are to teaching your audience the topics in which we are interested. Thank you for all your work!
In addition, as far as format is concerned, I recently participated in a class by Cynthia Damaskos and Molly Sabourin with a guest instructor. The class is called Back to Basics. It is a 10 week class which can be taken at your own pace and includes hands on demonstrations of the topics covered and a weekly zoom call to discuss the weekly topic. You might want to check in with them for more details about how it is structured and see if it could work for your class. (Cynthia and Molly have the Filled with Less podcast on AFR.)
TL;DR I would absolutely be interested in piloting a course like this!
My experience has been similar to Huw's earlier comment. I feel like I have properly become convinced of the limitations, biases, and falsehoods inherent to the modern secular worldview, and am clear on the NEED for an enchanted worldview, but don't understand how to take that next step and really "see the world" through those eyes. A great example is something that was discussed during the episode on the Faustian Age, about how demons and spiritual beings were seen by the ancients as being fundamental to the fabric of reality somehow—"elemental", perhaps like what Huw said about the angels. What does that really mean metaphysically or ontologically? Right now I feel like I'm juggling two separate worldviews in my head, rather than one unified framework.
After several decades of reflection, it has become apparent that secularization is an evil that sucks the life out of our awareness of the Transcendent. Understanding secularization will entail the reconsideration of terms and their referents and how these have been de-transcendentalized by our social milieu with the result being that we think of them as being devoid of the Transcendent altogether. For example, "history"--which we normally think of as being a science of past events--has unseen dimensions to it as I discovered, but not easily. Since I was a kid, I was drawn to history and archaeology. My professional training both introduced me to methods for studying the past while quietly suppressing questions beyond those that were sanctioned. Despite this, I continued to suspect that there was something more that was being suppressed by the regnant orthodoxy. This was driven home when I was employed by the MS Department of Archives and History and became involved in interpreting history to the public. This went beyond the usual methodological concerns with past events and raised the question of "what does history MEAN to people?" I recognized in the experience of old buildings and historic sites a form of the experience of the sacred. I pointed this out in a number of publications but my colleagues would have nothing of it, because it implied that government agencies were involved with religion, and they found this possibility to be quite troubling in that it implied that the old "wall of separation" between state and religion had been breached, if not found to be an illusion that all were forced to believe in and act on (a la the emperor's new clothes). This points to concrete aspects of human experience that should be addressed in terms of the way in which secularization impacts them.
Very interested, especially as it could related to real world actions we can take.
I think it’s a great idea. I would really be interested in the daily challenges to make me more aware of just hire secular I am and how to change.
I am totally interested in participating and supporting this.
Prompts for exercises, tasks, and writing seems like an important element, for fostering whole engagement with the content.
Yes please.
Good idea. Have you spent any time in A Course In Miracles? It’s very comprehensive and simple but powerful truths from which to follow. It is dense with information and practical as a guide between ourselves and God. I recommend reading it as you evolve. 👊🏻❤️
I’m interested.
I don't like the name of the course. People cannot actively unlearn but they can learn new information that makes previous connections deteriorate as they become inactive.
Intuition and discernment - Compile a few tests with multiple choice questions, i.e. "Which of the following options aligns most closely with the teachings of Jesus?" And then you list four similarly worded options. As they think through options, they are forced to reason through versions of who Jesus is, who Jesus isn't, what Jesus would teach, what Jesus wouldn't teach. They develop discernment. This is a phenomenal idea if properly executed. I used to play around with ChatGPT but it won't be of much help. It'll tend toward linguistic variation and that's not what is required.