The two alternatives are always exclusionary, usually in an angry way: things are either totally right or totally wrong, with me or against me, male or female, Democrat or Republican, Christian or pagan, on and on and on. The binary mind provides quick security and false comfort, but never wisdom. It thinks it is smart because it counters your idea with an opposing idea. There is usually not much room for a "reconciling third." I see this in myself almost every day.

Remember this: pure literalism always leads to a decrease in meaning. Mythology and sacred texts try to lead us and allow us to have the experience for ourselves. Through our experience we discover that encounter is not only possible but desirable. So often we struggle with experiencing our experiences.

I believe that there are two necessary paths enabling us to move toward wisdom: a radical journey inward and a radical journey outward. For

To take the Scriptures seriously is not to take them literally. Literalism is invariably the lowest and least level of meaning. Most

working hypothesis, can move forward with theory, while

Only the spacious, contemplative mind can see so broadly and trust so deeply. The small calculating mind wants either/or, win or lose, good or bad.

Wisdom happily lives with mystery, doubt, and "unknowing," and in such living, ironically resolves that very mystery to some degree.

The major heresy of the Western churches is that they have largely turned around the very meaning of faith—not knowing and not needing to know—into its exact opposite: demanding to know and insisting that we do know!

You are supposed to struggle with spiritual texts, but when you make the Bible into a quick answer book, you largely remain at your present level of awareness. There are groups who would describe the Bible as an answer book for all of life's problems. The Bible is actually a conflict book. It is filled with seeming contradictions or paradoxes and, if you read it honestly and humbly, it should actually create problems for you!

There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life.

Remember, it is not the brand name that matters. It is that God's heart be made available and active on this earth.

Contemplation is waiting patiently for the gaps to be filled in, and it does not insist on quick closure or easy answers. It never rushes to judgment, and in fact avoids making quick judgments because judgments have more to do with egoic, personal control than with a loving search for truth.