Study Guide for Transforming Faith: Stories of Change from a Lifelong Spiritual Seeker
“Truth is not the exclusive or inclusive possession of any one tradition or community. Therefore, the diversity of communities, traditions, understandings of the truth, and visions of God is not an obstacle for us to overcome, but an opportunity for our energetic engagement and dialogue with one another. . . . God is not ours, God is our way of speaking of a Reality that cannot be encompassed by any one religious tradition, including our own.”
-Diana Eck
Chapter 1
1) Traditional Christianity sets great store by the physical body. Jesus’ bodily resurrection. The creeds that stress “the resurrection of the body.” And then there are the burial practices. The church stresses understanding the soul as incorporeal – requiring a body. In the first century onward, what advantages might this have given Christianity over pagan traditions that led to it so rapidly spreading and overtaking pagan and folk religions? Given the advent of the scientific worldview and the radical changes of our self understanding since the Enlightenment, should that understanding of human existence now be obsolete?
2) In Mary Oliver’s powerful poem, entitled “Poem” she says “the spirit likes to dress up like this,” meaning the body, and “[the spirit] needs the metaphor of the body.” In what ways does having a body facilitate our spirituality? In what ways does it detract from it?
Chapter 2
If you were raised in a church or within some religious community, what are some of your earliest memories associated with that place? What stories were you told? How did those stories shape those memories? How did those stories shape your understanding of God?
Chapter 3
The “real” story of what happened to Pi in the lifeboat, the story without animals, was a story of cannibalism. Quite gruesome. Pi’s psychological coping mechanism was to invent the colorful story of the animals. Given the existential dilemma all humans face – how do we go on living (surviving), knowing that we will die - how might that same coping mechanism be at work? Does that explain to your satisfaction why 90 plus percent of Americans consistently report on surveys that they believe in God?
Chapter 4
Assume that you are an enlightened “fish” that has jumped out of the fishbowl of traditional religion. Of the four options outlined for the fish at the end of the chapter, which option describes where you are today? Are you comfortable living that option? In what ways might you feel the call to pursue another option?
Chapter 5
One of the ways more sophisticated religious and spiritual organizations integrate the two ways of knowing, “looking at” and “looking along,” is to have one member of the group step outside the group during important meetings and act as a process observer. This gives the group members freedom to go ahead and engage in passionate conversation about the issues, while the process observer is supposedly free to remain dispassionate and can then report back to the group about the group’s own internal dynamics. Good process observers speak in terms of group dynamics, and do not focus on the behavior or actions of particular individuals. As a process observer of a group you are in now, what feedback would you offer the group about its current process?
Chapter 6
What were the primary sources of religious or spiritual authority for you in your formative years? How about today? Was there a particular event or experience that changed this for you?
Chapter 7
1) Is there a particular question that guides you on your spiritual quest today?
2) If faith, as this chapter suggests, is our orientation to life and our way of engaging in the world, how would you explain your faith to a friend? Did you find it necessary to use “religious words” to do so? (Sometimes words have religious or spiritual connotations we aren’t even aware of. If the group is comfortable doing so, it might want to offer feedback on this aspect (use of religious words) as the group shares.
Chapter 8
What do you think is the significance of the names Unamuno chose for the characters in his story. Bear in mind that Manuel can be a shortened version of “Emmanuel.”
Chapter 9
Was there a Marla in your life, someone who affirmed you when you began to question the traditional religiosity? Have you been a Marla to someone else? Have you ever had an experience you might say qualified as mystical? Do you think it changed you?
Chapter 10
How was Paul different after his Damascus Road experience? In what ways was he much the same?
Chapter 11
The author seems to embrace the character and persona of the atheist Bertrand Russell yet only has disparaging things to say about other atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. What is it about Russell’s character and spirituality that makes him a worthy paradigm of faith as opposed to the persona of new atheists like Harris and Dawkins?
Chapter 12
The author could just as well have chosen Jesus as the paradigm of holistic faith. Why do you thing he chose to go with Gandhi?
Chapter 13
By virtue of being scientists, Dr. Taylor’s story and those of others like the author of Proof of Heaven, Eben Alexander, have been given quite a bit of credibility. But is science alone really the source of their credibility? Is there something else contributing to the veracity of their claims?
Chapter 14
Has your religion or your spiritual ideals changed over the years? What role did exposure to new and different ideas play in that transformation?
Chapter 15
Has your impression of another person ever changed dramatically? What made the difference? Did a significant emotional event have anything to do with the transformation of that other person in your eyes?
Chapter 16
According to Buechner’s definition of vocation, is your current work also your vocation? Describe what it is that you see as your calling.
Chapter 17
Do you have a close friend or a circle of friends that listen well and let you have your own feelings without trying to fix you? Are these the people you migrate towards when you are sad? Happy? Angry? How well are you able to sit with others and just let them “be” without intentionally trying to heal them when they are hurting?
Chapter 18
Is being inclusive important to you? Do you have a spiritual community that feels like it’s welcoming to all? If not, what do you think such a community would look like?
Chapter 19
Does the story of Flatland bring up for you any past experience? What was it like? How hard was it for you to reacclimate back to the ordinary world? Did anyone else seem to understand what you had experienced?
Chapter 20
Mother Teresa is reported to have said, “I live each day in complete astonishment at how cleverly Jesus disguises himself.” She saw Jesus in every person she met. Have you had such an encounter recently? What was it about the encounter that made it seem like an encounter with the divine?
Chapter 21
From where you are spiritually and psychologically today, is the idea of God beneficial or detrimental to your spiritual growth? Do you have any insight as to the reasons that may be so?
Chapter 22
Do you have a story of a memorable encounter in Rumi’s Field? What happened or what was said that allowed the two of you to transcend your individual thoughts?
Chapter 23
Mark Twain said something to the effect that travel is the great enemy of prejudice. What have you learned about yourself and your attitudes as you have traveled and encountered diversity? When returning home, did you have a different perspective on your life? Your culture? Your spiritual or religious tradition?
Chapter 24
Have you ever been hurt by someone in a religious context? Where are you now, in a religious or spiritual sense, now that the experience is behind you? Does it still inform your attitude toward that religion in some way? Is this a healthy place for you to be?
Chapter 25
Whether or not one claims the identity of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or some other tradition, everyone has encountered religious bigotry. What kind of person are you in the face of such prejudice? Quiet? Angry? Courageous? Loving? Some other response?
Chapter 26
As this chapter suggests, the resurrection story was likely written to give the early Christian community hope when it had little reason to have any. Has anyone said or done anything to you recently that gave you hope? Have you had a chance to do or say anything that made you an agent of hope for someone else? What was the experience like?
Chapter 27
Have you ever had to deal with guilt over a rather serious transgression? How did you cope? Was your religion or spirituality helpful? How?
“Truth is not the exclusive or inclusive possession of any one tradition or community. Therefore, the diversity of communities, traditions, understandings of the truth, and visions of God is not an obstacle for us to overcome, but an opportunity for our energetic engagement and dialogue with one another. . . . God is not ours, God is our way of speaking of a Reality that cannot be encompassed by any one religious tradition, including our own.”
-Diana Eck
Chapter 1
1) Traditional Christianity sets great store by the physical body. Jesus’ bodily resurrection. The creeds that stress “the resurrection of the body.” And then there are the burial practices. The church stresses understanding the soul as incorporeal – requiring a body. In the first century onward, what advantages might this have given Christianity over pagan traditions that led to it so rapidly spreading and overtaking pagan and folk religions? Given the advent of the scientific worldview and the radical changes of our self understanding since the Enlightenment, should that understanding of human existence now be obsolete?
2) In Mary Oliver’s powerful poem, entitled “Poem” she says “the spirit likes to dress up like this,” meaning the body, and “[the spirit] needs the metaphor of the body.” In what ways does having a body facilitate our spirituality? In what ways does it detract from it?
Chapter 2
If you were raised in a church or within some religious community, what are some of your earliest memories associated with that place? What stories were you told? How did those stories shape those memories? How did those stories shape your understanding of God?
Chapter 3
The “real” story of what happened to Pi in the lifeboat, the story without animals, was a story of cannibalism. Quite gruesome. Pi’s psychological coping mechanism was to invent the colorful story of the animals. Given the existential dilemma all humans face – how do we go on living (surviving), knowing that we will die - how might that same coping mechanism be at work? Does that explain to your satisfaction why 90 plus percent of Americans consistently report on surveys that they believe in God?
Chapter 4
Assume that you are an enlightened “fish” that has jumped out of the fishbowl of traditional religion. Of the four options outlined for the fish at the end of the chapter, which option describes where you are today? Are you comfortable living that option? In what ways might you feel the call to pursue another option?
Chapter 5
One of the ways more sophisticated religious and spiritual organizations integrate the two ways of knowing, “looking at” and “looking along,” is to have one member of the group step outside the group during important meetings and act as a process observer. This gives the group members freedom to go ahead and engage in passionate conversation about the issues, while the process observer is supposedly free to remain dispassionate and can then report back to the group about the group’s own internal dynamics. Good process observers speak in terms of group dynamics, and do not focus on the behavior or actions of particular individuals. As a process observer of a group you are in now, what feedback would you offer the group about its current process?
Chapter 6
What were the primary sources of religious or spiritual authority for you in your formative years? How about today? Was there a particular event or experience that changed this for you?
Chapter 7
1) Is there a particular question that guides you on your spiritual quest today?
2) If faith, as this chapter suggests, is our orientation to life and our way of engaging in the world, how would you explain your faith to a friend? Did you find it necessary to use “religious words” to do so? (Sometimes words have religious or spiritual connotations we aren’t even aware of. If the group is comfortable doing so, it might want to offer feedback on this aspect (use of religious words) as the group shares.
Chapter 8
What do you think is the significance of the names Unamuno chose for the characters in his story. Bear in mind that Manuel can be a shortened version of “Emmanuel.”
Chapter 9
Was there a Marla in your life, someone who affirmed you when you began to question the traditional religiosity? Have you been a Marla to someone else? Have you ever had an experience you might say qualified as mystical? Do you think it changed you?
Chapter 10
How was Paul different after his Damascus Road experience? In what ways was he much the same?
Chapter 11
The author seems to embrace the character and persona of the atheist Bertrand Russell yet only has disparaging things to say about other atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. What is it about Russell’s character and spirituality that makes him a worthy paradigm of faith as opposed to the persona of new atheists like Harris and Dawkins?
Chapter 12
The author could just as well have chosen Jesus as the paradigm of holistic faith. Why do you thing he chose to go with Gandhi?
Chapter 13
By virtue of being scientists, Dr. Taylor’s story and those of others like the author of Proof of Heaven, Eben Alexander, have been given quite a bit of credibility. But is science alone really the source of their credibility? Is there something else contributing to the veracity of their claims?
Chapter 14
Has your religion or your spiritual ideals changed over the years? What role did exposure to new and different ideas play in that transformation?
Chapter 15
Has your impression of another person ever changed dramatically? What made the difference? Did a significant emotional event have anything to do with the transformation of that other person in your eyes?
Chapter 16
According to Buechner’s definition of vocation, is your current work also your vocation? Describe what it is that you see as your calling.
Chapter 17
Do you have a close friend or a circle of friends that listen well and let you have your own feelings without trying to fix you? Are these the people you migrate towards when you are sad? Happy? Angry? How well are you able to sit with others and just let them “be” without intentionally trying to heal them when they are hurting?
Chapter 18
Is being inclusive important to you? Do you have a spiritual community that feels like it’s welcoming to all? If not, what do you think such a community would look like?
Chapter 19
Does the story of Flatland bring up for you any past experience? What was it like? How hard was it for you to reacclimate back to the ordinary world? Did anyone else seem to understand what you had experienced?
Chapter 20
Mother Teresa is reported to have said, “I live each day in complete astonishment at how cleverly Jesus disguises himself.” She saw Jesus in every person she met. Have you had such an encounter recently? What was it about the encounter that made it seem like an encounter with the divine?
Chapter 21
From where you are spiritually and psychologically today, is the idea of God beneficial or detrimental to your spiritual growth? Do you have any insight as to the reasons that may be so?
Chapter 22
Do you have a story of a memorable encounter in Rumi’s Field? What happened or what was said that allowed the two of you to transcend your individual thoughts?
Chapter 23
Mark Twain said something to the effect that travel is the great enemy of prejudice. What have you learned about yourself and your attitudes as you have traveled and encountered diversity? When returning home, did you have a different perspective on your life? Your culture? Your spiritual or religious tradition?
Chapter 24
Have you ever been hurt by someone in a religious context? Where are you now, in a religious or spiritual sense, now that the experience is behind you? Does it still inform your attitude toward that religion in some way? Is this a healthy place for you to be?
Chapter 25
Whether or not one claims the identity of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or some other tradition, everyone has encountered religious bigotry. What kind of person are you in the face of such prejudice? Quiet? Angry? Courageous? Loving? Some other response?
Chapter 26
As this chapter suggests, the resurrection story was likely written to give the early Christian community hope when it had little reason to have any. Has anyone said or done anything to you recently that gave you hope? Have you had a chance to do or say anything that made you an agent of hope for someone else? What was the experience like?
Chapter 27
Have you ever had to deal with guilt over a rather serious transgression? How did you cope? Was your religion or spirituality helpful? How?