The Light in Every Thing

In this final episode of our first series of the new podcast season, Patrick and Jonah take up a confronting quote from the gospel that states that Christ himself has come to bring division and separation to humanity; that he brings a sword and sets one against the other, even within our own households (Matthew 10: 34-36) If Christ is bringing this division among human beings, how can we understan...

The fourth episode in our series leads further into a description of the medicine being offered us - medicine uniquely designed to overcome deep divisions, both within the human constitution and across every human relationship. Our illnesses as individuals and communities are calls to what we are meant to become. What is the seed-medicine we are meant take in and nourish as it unfolds?  Ask us a q...

The third episode in our series delves further into the dual nature of the human self or ego. Jonah and Patrick consider the dynamics between oneself and an Other; the landscape of human desire. the tendency to dominate, and the selfhood and inner freedom that is so precious to the modern human being. How do we reconcile these different parts of ourselves?  Do the mysteries of Christianity offer u...

This second episode in our series takes us further into the mystery of human selfhood and its longing to be in relationship to the living Truth. Using the pictures of the beggar and the crowned king, Patrick and Jonah explore ways to free the human ego from the traps of comfort and isolation, so that it can take its rightful place, gifted to humanity by Christ, in the throne of every human heart....

As the first of four sections to this entire season of the Light in Every Thing, this series explores a core moral challenge that has emerged with increasing strength recently: How do we find community even as we find our individuality? How can I come to a truth that doesn't simply negate yours? How can we generate unity with our fellow humans - including our many conflicting perspectives - w...

In this short preview, you will hear Patrick and Jonah describe the overarching theme for this year’s podcast. Coming to our selves means separating from everyone else.  The self is a "two edged sword", cutting, on the one hand, towards the dignity and beauty of our free individuality, and on the other, self-hood is destructive for the existing bonds of community that used to hold us tog...

For our summer series, we are reposting this episode from our ‘Path of Discipleship’ series. It explores in depth one of the signposts of path of discipleship. Here is how it was introduced last year: **** This week’s gospel reading (Matthew 6: 19-34) brings us one step further along our path together. The fundamental question of discipleship, “Who do you serve?” is explored more deeply here. Do w...

As a part of our summer series: Here is another look at a fascinating conversation between Lisa Romero and Rev. Jonah Evans. Lisa describes how who we are in the world today is setting the stage for a world far into the future. We hope you find it inspiring!   In this episode, Jonah spoke  with Lisa Romero as part of our series of conversations we called, "Bridging the Divide".  In these...

This podcast conversation is with Laurens Hornemann, from Dortmund, Germany.  This content was originally shared only with our patrons on Patreon and is a good example of the kind of extra content that is available to those who become supporters of the work of the seminary - and this podcast. You can see more here: www.patreon.com/ccseminary.  Here is what we wrote to introduce the conversation ba...

In this last episode of our series on Christian mission work, we explore what it means that “all authority in heaven and on earth” was given to the risen Christ (Matthew 28: 18 - 20). What does this look like? What does a conquering, victorious god look like, in all his glory? In Jesus it looks like what Christians called “good Friday”: It looks like him dying on the cross. In him, everything has...

This episode’s conversation further develops our understanding of the “Great Commission” found in Matthew 28: 16-20. Before any instructions were given to the disciples as to their mission in the world, Matthew describes how, when they saw Jesus, they were moved to worship him and that some of them held back or doubted. What does it mean to worship today and why might we doubt or hold ourselves ba...

For some people, the idea of the Christian missionary calls up images of a heroic life fully given to a higher cause. For others, it calls up a legacy of spiritual trespass, abuse of power and physical violence.  In this episode, Jonah and Patrick take a deeper look at the exact instructions given by Jesus to his disciples in the so-called, "Great Commission" (Matt. 28:16-20). They seek,...

Why is exile necessary? What is God hoping we will gain in the desert? In this conversation, Jonah and Patrick reveal how our egotism generates the exile experience. But there are great gifts to be found in exile: Human beings could never become beings of love without this freedom—freedom which is a gift of the exile reality. Through free acts of sacrificial love we can also find our way back to o...

This episode is an audio recording of one of the presentations from our Beloved Community in Exile seminary open course earlier this week. This talk, offered by Patrick Kennedy, touches on where humanity is headed: the much hoped for return from exile - the New Creation and the New Covenant. If you are interested in the Beloved Community theme, you can visit our Patreon  page The Light in Every Th...

Christ’s prayer for humanity is that they be consecrated. Once the people of God were consecrated by the blood of ritual sacrifices. He shows a new path to Consecration: He consecrates himself for our sake, that we may also be consecrated in truth . In this fourth episode of our series on John 17, we explore what it means to be consecrated in truth. Ask us a question here! Support the show The Lig...

How do we find true protection in this world? In the third episode of our series on John 17, we learn that this protection is at the heart of Christ’s prayer for us.  He prays for us to become a unified community; that we overcome the isolation and separateness inherent to this world and become unified in Christ and the Father, sustained by the blessing of His protection, which flows from the spir...

The opening lines of John 17 contain an essence of the mysteries of Christianity - Christ’s relationship to humanity and to God - flowing to us from this intimate prayer to the Father, the night before His crucifixion. Christ’s hour has come. Through the “glory” of the cross, Christ is given the authority to grant eternal life, so that a new community can unfold and God’s hope for humanity be fulf...

With this episode we open up a new series that will explore what it means to be united with Christ and to live “in this world”.  To do this, we will be working with one single text: the so-called ‘High Priestly Prayer’ found in the Gospel of John, chapter 17.  To lay the ground work, Jonah and Patrick dive into the idea of ‘the world’ in John’s gospel, uncovering a, perhaps, surprising spiritual c...

As those who seek union with Christ, we turn towards Him, we grow towards Him, so He can gift us with His resurrection forces. This episode explores what it means to open ourselves to these forces of resurrection, even while bearing our cross. As those forces flow into us, we can feel the power of joyful hope; a power that assures us the victory is won even while we are still going through the bat...

Christ gifts us our true humanity when we allow three things to become alive in us: the mystery of His suffering and death, the mystery of His resurrection, and the mystery of His manifesting or revelation. This episode considers what it means to unite with the Being who chooses the cross again and again. Can we follow Christ to the cross and die to our old ways? Through our dying, can we open to...

In prayer we reach out and up to a being greater than ourselves - for many different reasons. But, as you’ll hear in this conversation, “the heart of Christian prayer is union with Christ.” If uniting with Him is the highest goal of prayer life, how do we make our hearts a dwelling and invite Christ in? Ask us a question here! Support the show The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary...

In this episode, we delve deeper into how essential it is for the renewal of our religious life to include thinking in our life of prayer. This is a prayer life that can enable us to approach the divinity with our full, emerging humanity. Thinking permeated with reverence and love becomes a sensing organ we can turn towards the Spirit, and with patient humility hope to experience God’s living pres...

In this episode, we further explore how thinking forms a kind of groundwork that offers confidence in our praying; not an abstract, merely intellectual thinking, but thinking intrinsically related to understanding our life experiences. How can we know that a being is worth following? Even more so, how can we know that we are actually in the presence of an ‘other,’ rather than an aspect of our own...

In this episode we are reminded again that our very relationship to religious life is at stake, if we cannot find  the way to an authentic expression of prayer. Beyond that, we are shown how prayer is essentially about Life of the highest order; how, through prayer, “spiritual forces from the heavenly realms can be received and taken in and made fruitful on the earth.” Ask us a question here! Supp...

In this new series “The Heart of Religious Renewal,” we take up the subject of prayer as a foundational expression of and path to ‘whole humanness.’ First, what do we mean by religious life? And, secondly, what are the particular qualities of prayer that, in our time, allow for the renewal of religious life? Ask us a question here! Support the show The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Semi...