Earthly Religion | Earthly Religion

Sex? Yes!

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

(I believe in human wholeness – not fragmentation, not partiality, not alienation. Does this include sex? Yes! What the Creator built in we should not shame and alienate. The topic is vast, the approaches to it are many, and the feelings about it can be prone to upheaval. What I offer here is limited, provocative, reasonable, and sincere. I appreciate my liberal congregation, which took this in thoughtful stride. The version they heard was about half as long as what here follows.) “Oh, God!”…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

The most unusual wedding I ever performed was of a woman to herself. On the shore of Lake Michigan I pronounced this lovely, creative creature One, adding, “What God hath joined together, let no one rent asunder.” Of course, this was a spiritual ceremony, not a legal contract, though the marriage issue could be stretched to consider calling such a union a marriage. Or should it? Just what is a marriage, who qualifies, and who decides? Let us consider marriage, gay marriage, and the…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

“These things abide: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13) “Love, oh love, you crazy love.” Love is the cause and core of being human. Lusty love, luscious love, languid love, lively love, lovely love, we yearn for love, go wild in love, grow stale in love, grant our love, give it, get it, grasp it, lose it, find it, make it, grow it, get saved by it. Annoying love, obsessive love, exploring love, ignoring love, deploring love,…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

I’d like to start by thanking Hearne, Jordon, John and others from the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library for sponsoring these free Tuesday evening lectures. The donation you gave at the door goes to them to help them host this ongoing service. My humble perspective on sex is one among many varied topics on these Tuesday evenings. These cover everything from healing to finance to space aliens, so I figured this fits right in. I can’t claim to be an expert in the topic, though I’ve…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

Dogs don’t dance. I’ve been to many a bouncy dance situation where everyone is jerking and swaying, but the dogs just walk around. They’re not alone. Lots of animals don’t display an interest in music or dancing, and I’ve noticed most young children also don’t dance. Only a few rare ones seem to get the beat and try to bob up and down with it. As they mature, though, they do get it and start liking certain songs, going to dances, and sometimes playing an…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

Thirty years ago as a young student minister in Michigan I preached against our government’s persecution and prohibition of drugs. In the back of the room the local police and prosecutors sat, glowering. In the front, in the pulpit, I rolled what appeared to be a joint. However, because marijuana was illegal, I had to use imaginary marijuana, relying only on the placebo effect for our shared spiritual experience. I toked it up, held my breath, and passed it around as a communion. Most people…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

What and who are we, and whither would we go, and why, really? I start to answer these questions, not by copying what others say, or by mouthing what others expect me to say as a minister, but by honestly saying what I think I know. As you know, I entered ministry via a route through embalming. At 18 I looked closely into death. It awakened a wonder at the structure of our bodies and an appreciation for our precious, limited life. Too…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

What ever became of vision? Our current political and religious leadership have visions so dark and backward we forsake ever hoping for better. Can we look past these dreary scenarios? Dare we? The visionaries of the past left failed results, leading us to cynicism. Skinner’s meager Walden II was at least a fair attempt at being fair. The Farm in Tennessee and the Oneida Community in upper New York were limited to limited communes. The great socialist vision of a worker’s paradise descended into…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

Humans are meaning-seeking creatures. We want to know, or at least want to seem to know. We want coherence and congruency. We want to know what is, why it is, and how to live in it. By “it” I mean this obvious manifest material world. We find ourselves born into a family and culture, living in a body that grows and ages. We cling to life and see that those who pass from it do not return, except in memory and dreams. Occasionally we…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

It seems paradoxical that here on Perihelion Day, when we’re the closest to the sun, we’re so cold. If we’re three million miles closer now than we are on July 4th, Aphelion Day, why aren’t we hotter now and colder then? It depends more on the angle of relationship than the distance. Our northern hemisphere gets a glancing-off short day of sunlight that also has to penetrate more atmosphere at that shallow angle. So, while we’re closer than ever, we’re coldest because of our angel…

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The dream of an Earthly Religion…

Earthly: our precious natural earth which allows us our bodies, lives, cultures and future.

Religion: from the old root words religare and religio, meaning “to bind back to the root and be whole again.” This does not assume we need to believe in God or the Bible. Rather, we should be well-related with our own bodies, each other, natural life, and natural existence as it actually is. If there is connection with divinity or God, it is in and through our bodies and beings that we relate primarily, not via scriptures, traditions, rituals, or supposed religious authorities. In short, by religion we mean “relating well with reality.”

The emphasis here is on the earthly. It is not an afterlife or an instead-of-life that interests us. Living well here on earth together does.

While we take our religious perspective and work seriously, we don’t want it to be stuffy. Too often, religions can be alien to the human condition rather than affirming of it. They can be demeaning and demoralizing, dull and bossy, ponderously pretentious. We lean more towards the fun and sexy, natural and lively, human and humane, thoughtful and pertinent.

Reality: the obvious and inescapable stuff of physical existence. We intend to enjoy and tend our lives in these bodies, for our time, in our cultures, for our singular and interrelated ecosystem. There may be more, but there is AT LEAST THIS of which we are born, in which we live, and into which we will die.

God or no-God is not the point; Earth is. Both believers and non-believers are welcome here, for we all share a common source, opportunity, and responsibility: life as it is and could be. This ranges from simply improving one’s own life to your helping save and restore Eden’s, not just to “sustain” it, but veering it to thrive as never before. If you value your life, each other’s, and Earth’s – welcome!

Learn more…

Sex? Yes!

Marriage, Gay Marriage and the Human Family

Loving More and More Loving

Lifting the Leaf and Loving the Lovely

Human Music

Alternatives to the War on Drugs (2002)

What and Wither, Really?

Visions of Whole, Healed, Healthy, Happy World

This, at Least

Perihelion Promise