It is surreal to hear your own life story of a long journey through multiple spiritual paths and to finally land in Orthodox Christianity. It is the home for the homeless. May God use these stories to bring others home.
So many people are experiencing this sort of awakening right now. A sort of return to our roots, or back to the drawing board, myself inculded. Everyone seems to have been living life wandering aimlessly through the desert trying to find meaning... How many other people feel this way and have had similar experiences with finding Christ?
I have just become a member of our local Anglican Church. I’ve been a Christian in theory for a long time but now it sees important to go deeper and commit fully.
I’m 52 grew up in the Church spent some time wandering and have experience The Pursuit and thanks much both of you for shining a light into so many things that have seemed not quite right and troubled me for years. The wildness of Christ! The heroic Jesus! And lastly screens mediating when naked before God in His house! Look forward to reading your books! Thanks to whoever had a hand in letting this out. Must rewatch
Living on the Wild Atlantic Coast ... the wild rugged beauty of north Mayo ... stand on the Cliffs at Portacloy .. look out at the Stags of Broadhaven ... I'm blessed to be on the Wild adventure called life with the God who made it all ...
Thank you so much for recording and posting this. Really admire these two and loved their conversation. Yes - the host/mc/interviewer was a tad labored with her statement/questions esp early on, but Paul & Martin are so gracious & articulate that they were easily able to get through to the salient points. Much to chew on here but I particularly found the point that the person of Jesus the Christ is much wilder than humanity’s attempts to co-opt Him for our pet political project or agenda. Yes - there are Christian ‘principles’ to be considered and applied in our socio-political spheres - but - more important - is Jesus’ question to His apostles (and us) - ‘Who do YOU say I am?’ And are we going to allow Him to be our Lord - where we are?
Listening to Paul I wanted to point out, the laws of the universe have recently been found to actually evolve and are not fixed (I'm a theoretical physicists daughter). I feel maybe the resurrection was a time this happened - Jesus' love transforming the fundamental the reality of the universe in the most profound way.
Precisely Paul at 39: - The depths of Gods love extends all the way in and through his creation. Including the material, time, space, limit. And then, now! He transforms it - not by negation - but by uniting His Spirit with the....world
"And I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God... Behold, I went... in the forests... And my soul hungered... And there came a voice unto me..." "O God... if there is a God, and if Thou art God, wilt Thou make Thyself known unto me..."
“We are living in a pre-Christian era, not post-Christian.” I would say it’s pre, post, and current all at the same time. What I have discovered about the Orthodox monks is beautifully unsettling because it is another level of uncharted understanding. Mostly beautiful though. I have to almost purposely focus on other things, because it’s so heavy. Why I said we live in a pre, post, and current Christian culture is because the monks are further along in theosis than anyone else. They are eschatological persons that every layman can interact with. They are eschatological persons that live in the “today”. To put it crudely they are time-travelers that are reaching their hands back to us, who are “further back” or “lower” in theosis. And bringing us with them. Creation and person are being restored in front of our eyes. Most people see our world right now as chaos but I honestly have never felt more alive and free in my entire life. Symbolically and truly. Maybe I’m crazy. 🤷♂️ Just a theory.
If we're living at the end of a culture, as Kingsnorth says, there is still God. God is not going away. The person of Christ changed the human story and I sense that change remains, no matter how we'd like not to be haunted by that reality.
I can’t help but wonder if Paul or Martin are familiar with the Waterboys and Mike Scott. They speak in prose and story what I’ve been hearing in Waterboys music for a long time. I think I discern kindred spirits.
Fascinating that they are both non-Americans. As someone in Canada, I've known for a long time that being Christian only makes you suspect. For more reflections on church in secular culture: ru-vid.com/group/PLmKcUgl_U7lWoPFV3kot0We1qUSeYKfMj&si=dsZlmm-enLPo3HcM Paul Kingsworthy is straight up preaching after their introductions.
Great that these two are reviving a more nature centric Christianity, but I'm a little surprised at the mythologist dismissing the Jungian perspective on this. 'Jesus is not an archetype', Martin is keen to tell us. No, he's not, but 'The Christ', 'The Messiah', IS, so the question really is 'has the myth become flesh, or has the flesh been mythologized, and how much does it matter which way around it is'? He's keen to mention Odin and Dionysius, the Norse and Greek gods, but if you read Tom Holland the more pertinent subject to consider is Octavian, the first Roman emperor, who was seen as a divine figure, and hence why Jesus being seen as a divine figure isn't so alien in the Roman context, but of course what is alien is his apparently lowly earthly status, that is a complete inversion, the first example of 'the last shall be first'
Sort of quaint, like a time before multiculturalism. I had a very strong awakening experience a bit like as described here in a wild Buddhist monastery. It is interesting how we can project those experiences onto a form or figure. Christianity is certainly having a moment as the Christian nations support the slaughter of Muslims in Palestine to fulfil biblical prophecy and while the orthodox and western church in Russia and Ukraine use their ideologies to batter each other into submission. I hope we can move on but in these uncertain times people do wish to hark back to the comfort of a figure that will save us when really spreading the Christian message is really branding slaves, colonies, crusades, World wars. Actually we have a new understanding of Gaia, one shared home beyond these religious tribal stories, one shared beautiful home, and a cosmos of incredible wonder.
But even your concern over the sins you list has its roots in Christianity. If you were living in pre-Christian Greece or Rome, wars and crusades and slavery would not be seen as evils. As Tom Holland says, human rights which we tend to see as universal only emerged out of the cataclysmic Jesus revolution.
@@rowanberry2355 I'm not suggesting that prior cultures had none at all but it would definitely be the exception and not the rule. Women and slaves were not considered equal (ask Plato). There were no abolitionists because no one thought slavery wrong.
I love the power should be at the altar not the pulpit comment . One of the most off putting things for me about Christianity in UK is the lecturing priests, robed and hierarchical. I can do without that thanks .
interesting talk ...the spiritual core of any religious worldview is enlightening ...true that ....but institutionalized religion is at best bullshit ....happy that Martin Shaw invoked the great William Blake who abhorred orthodox dogma and championed freedom and spirituality ..... myth and mysticism is a fascinating debate and I hugely respect Martin Shaw for that........religious symbols and rituals have a metaphoric value ...but to take religious stories literally is too much … I think it is outright stupid.... we have to acknowledge how the missionary zeal of different religious groups, especially Christianity, ruined the indigenous populations of the world and how it fed into imperialism earlier and how it feeds into neocolonialism of today...
I looked into the abyss for far too long, got scared and turned around and hid under jesus' skirt. To each their own but proselytizing your new faith is annoying.
Saw the title of this and thought it was about animism . Disappointed . The christianity i was raised in was pure control , tedium and neurotic fear . Wild places indeed .🙃 Still , if anyone can rework and redeem the mythos of christianity it would be a poet or storyteller.