What is a Religious Experience?

Join us online:  https://zoom.us/j/606344193; by telephone: 1-646-558-8656, meeting ID: 606 344 193 or by listening to our livestream (link below).

When we are stunned beyond words we are finally starting to get somewhere.

I cited these words by Ann Lamott to introduce my book “God Is Not God’s Name”, about which I gave a sermon last summer at UUCN.

Here I connect them to the first stated Source of our Living Tradition: “Direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder…”

In his book Ascent of the Mountain; Flight of the Dave the late lay-theologian, Michael Novak, wrote that the religious or spiritual journey in an ongoing process of experience and reflection on the experience. It involves keeping ourselves open to certain transforming—and often unexpected—life altering experiences, and then stepping back to discern how such experiences can shape and define—or re-define—our lives going forward. I’ll share how this process of experience and reflection can play a significant role in our lives.

As for the question raised in the sermon title, I go to the root meaning of the term religion itself, as I shared use it in my book: “To bind together again.” How does this experience/reflection process serve as a binding force in our lives?