Ask a Catholic Married Priest

Thursday, May 1, 2014

God Overheard: Brief Daily Meditations for Month of May, free download, now (May 1-8)

Release Today, May 1

God Overheard: Brief Daily Meditations for Month of May.

See book description below.

All eBook versions available for free download, code good til May 8, free.]

Note .epub also works for desktops and laptops.

Directions. Go to this website, click on “Buy” and put

this code HA94C (non-case-sensitive) in the drop down box,

then choose your format for free download

Note: this free discount is available only via the Smashwords publisher..

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/432151

New book cover temporarily delayed.(not required for eBook use)

You may also obtain a free sample if you do not wish to obtain your free copy.

Note: this offer is good only for next 8 days, til May 8.

Regular price $0.99.

You may share this code with others,

Please help us promote this booklet of thoughtful

reflections on the mystery of life, of love, of faith and of grace.

Paschal Baute. Author

Resilience of a Dream Catcher.

Book Description: Brief daily meditation about some aspect of faith, challenging the believer to expand horizons, to think "outside the box," and embrace and inclusive, welcoming, meaningful faith, sufficient to powerfully nurture the personal journey.

My Mission. I write to support, empower and challenge integration of diverse arenas of human endeavor, mindfulness, science and the wisdom traditions--reflections on the mystery of life and faith. How do I understand and negotiate the mystery of life and love I am part of. Basically Christian in orientation, meditation honors insights from other wisdom traditions, as well as science. Reflections are based on sixty years of study of Jesus, scholarship about Jesus and of the bible, in an inclusive, welcoming, nonjudgmental faith perspective. This month of meditating is designed primarily for those who are disillusioned with their childhood faith, their home church and organized religion and willing to be seekers of wisdom wherever it is to be found, mostly in human experience. It aims to be catholic in the largest sense of the word, a thoughtful consideration of whatever can help us find meaning, and nurture for our unique personal journeys.

Paschal the Rascal,

Spellbinder Storyteller,

Lexington, Kentucky Chapter

Description: Description: http://www.jesspublib.org/files/cmsUserFiles/Image/spellbinders%20logo.jpg

Storytelling Festival for Children with Special Needs, Lexingon, Ky.

see blog at http://dreamcatchersforchildren.blogspot.com/

(859) 293-5302

Free sample (20%) and early reviewers at

www.paschalbaute.com/resilience

Resilience of a Dream Catcher

A Spiritual Memoir, for veterans and others.

See interview with Paschal at Smashwords page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/PaschaltheRascal

distribution via Smashwords publisher, available now at Apple, B & N nook, Kobo, and Smashwords.

regular price $9.95, free to all Veterans, VA and active military.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Do you write on blogs? Yes. see...

My blogs

About me

Industry	Human Resources
Occupation	Spellbinder Storyteller
Location	Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Introduction	I love empowering people by building bridges between psychology, faith, wellness and the Wisdom traditions through storytelling, writing and community service.
Interests	Family, loving, skiing, building bridges, writing, teaching, ministry, reading, playfulness, storytelling, poetry and pushing my envelope. asking hard questions to spur a deeper faith. . .
Favorite Movies	Casablanca Bird Cage, Chariots of Fire, Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof, Field of Dreams, Star Wars, Queen of Hearts & romantic comedies re mysteries of human love...
Favorite Music	As Time Goes By, Bring in the Clowns, I Can't Get Started, How Can I Keep from Singing, Oh--What a Beautiful Morning, Amazing Grace, The Magnificat, Beethoven's Pastorale & Eroica, Paper Moon, Thanks for the Memories. Eva Cassidy, George Winston, classical guitar, most Jazz.
Favorite Books	The Brothers Karamazov, Les Miserables, The Clowns of God, A Good Man is Hard to Find, The Heart of a Leader, Poetry of Rumi, Hafiz and Gibran, Servant Leadership, Anam Cara, Psalms, Gospel of Mark, Scattering the Proud, Prayers for Lovers, and The Cost of Discipleship.

When your science teacher smashed a frozen rose with a hammer, did you warm the petals to bring them back to life?

Better: What new magic can you create with your imagination, courage and vulnerability? Dream! --then Walk the talk!

Do you promote interfaith understanding?

Paschal Baute is a co-founder and facilitator of the Spiritual Growth Network of Kentucky. He is an organizational psychologist working with leadership and team development and personnel screening. He is also a married Catholic priest with three children and three grandchildren. He has been active in the community of Lexington for many years, and helped organize our Many Faces of Spirit annual conference. His business web page will be found at www.paschalbaute.com

ARTICLES BY PASCHAL BAUTE

FORGIVENESS CHIT
(01/14/04)

EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS, FEBRUARY 28
(02/28/03)

CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME FROM NAZARETH?
(10/04/02)

JESUS DIED FOR OUR SINS? I DON'T THINK SO
(chapter 8: Theology and Spirituality: BOOK: DEVELOPING AN AUTHENTIC SPIRITUALITY)
(03/23/02)

MARCUS BORG, JESUS SCHOLAR
(03/02/02)

EXCERPTS FROM "TOLKIEN: ARCHETYPE AND WORD" BY PATRICK GRANT
(12/30/01)

TWELVE AFFIRMATIONS OF THE CANCER CONQUEROR
(11/07/01)

AFTERMATH: RADICAL INCOMPLETENESS
(10/30/01)

OCTOBER LEAVINGS
(10/29/01)

AWAY FROM WORDS: THE COMMON LANGUAGE IS MYSTERY
(10/23/01)

HALLOWEEN: HAUNTED, HORROR, FUN AND REALITY
(10/17/01)

UPPING THE ANTE
(10/04/01)

JOB WANTED

ON THE VALUE OF BEING MARGINAL
(4/15/99)

ADVENT/CHRISTMAS MEDITATION
(December 1998)

FORGIVENESS: WHY AND HOW

WERE I GOD (THE MUSINGS OF A PSYCHOTHERAPIST)

THE PARADIGM CONSPIRACY
(book review, July 1996)

WHAT IS A PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY?

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE?

THE SHARED JOURNEY

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF THE CHRISTIAN

SYMPTOMS OF RELIGIOUS ADDICTION

FORGIVENESS: 14 STEPS

RIGHTEOUSNESS IS A HORSE NAMED TROJAN

Articles by Paschal Baute are copyrighted and are for your information only. They may be downloaded, copied and used by you for educational purposes. A small gift of any size may be given to SGN. All of this work is nonprofit and the expenses are sustained only by donations

Ask for new catalog of some 300 articles, forms and checklists, The Complete Counselor Tool Kit, now being prepared for digital downloading. Planner publication: fall, 2014

Most recent, 2014, is his spiritual memoir, written primarily for his Veteran family but highly recommended for the general readers as well, Resilience of a Dream Catcher. See webpage introducing memoir with free download of first five chapters at www.paschalbuate.cm/resilience

Email paschalthestoryteller@gmail.com

[ SGN Home | SGN Newsletter | E-mail SGN |

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Are You a Snob? Join the human race!

I’m dealing with some family trauma recently when I talked it over with a friend.

“Cliques,” he said, "stick together and protect one another. They easily gang up on one who is ‘different’ in some way.”

“Wow!” I said, “This fits! In ways that hurt”

“It’s unconscious, a culture,” my friend said, “Not intentional.”

“How to they keep it going?” I asked.

“Snobbery,” he said., “Do you know what a snob is?”

“You tell me!”

“A snob is someone who judges you by a piece of you. The complexity of you, the whole of you is ignored. They see only the piece. By focusing on that piece, they do not need to change anything, or rattle their comfort zone.”

Boy, I thought, does that fit all sorts of situations. I have seen it happened in most of the groups or organizations I joined or tried to join. I did not know I must have stuck out like a sore thumb.

I decided to risk another question. "Do some develop lifestyle by finding fault everywhere out there?"

“These are the cynics, who risk nothing, They use their perennial fault finding to justify doing nothing for their community, “ said my guru friend.

“They do not accept that we are beautifully imperfect people living in a beautifully imperfect world,” I responded.

“Paschal, you live on a different planet than most, no better , no worse, just different,” my friend said.

I agreed and decided that was enough food for thought, for one day. Then I remembered a text, "Forgive us as we forgive..." And I thought. We are in trouble as humans.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Is the Bible literally inspired by God?

Answer. This depends on what we mean by "literal"

We can believe the bible is inspired without believing every word comes from God.
Every word in the Bible is a human word, written by a human, and only by men, to boot.

Inspiration does not mean that God spoke to a secretary and said put down this word, dictating.
If this were so,then God could not be an all knowing God because the bible has errors and contradictions
God's message in the Bible comes to us in a human envelope. written down by a human who was subject to the errors of his time and culture. For examplel every writer of the bible believed the earth was flat and was teh center of teh universe adn the sun moved around the earth. In some instances the bible says so about those "facts."

Therefore it is up to us to examinie the human cultural envelop in which the message arrives. Only then can we determine what was the intent of the message.

Meditate on this:” religious literalism is a form of hidden idolatry”

e.g. we are choosing some word or words to guarantee our way to God.

or our own righteousness. We thereby invest God’s power and light

in a human word for our comfort and security.

Take for example, "My concept or belief about God is better than your belief," could nnever arise from this mystery we call God. In doing this we are transferring the holiness due to God alone to this word, this belief, making it a necessary avenue for another. We have thereby introduced a hidden idolatry into our belief system. We have stepped into the easy Darkness of SNOBBERY (SEE NEXT POST) and are unknowingly participating in evil.

“Idols are jealous of one another.”

Next week:

Are you a secret snob?

Then you are huma.. We all do it.

Paschal, March 24, 2014.