To My Readers,
My
deepest apologies for not posting these past three months. So much was going on that the book that I
have been working on was not moving forward with any speed. So I put much on hold so that I could finish it. It is finished, and on its way to the
publisher. With any luck it should be
available from Amazon. com in a couple of weeks.
The book is titled, Renewing the
Sacred: A New Vision of Education. It
is my model of spiritual education. Spiritual education educes the spirit and
not just trains the mind and body.
Though much of it has appeared in the blog these past 18 months, much of
it is also new. The book brings it all
together in one coherent—I hope—package.
While the book is Baha’i-inspired—no surprise, there!—it is for educators
of all stripes and colors, even for public school teachers and administrators anywhere,
but especially here in the United States.
I will let everyone know when the book can be purchased.
Also, to let you know, I am working
on several other projects. There are two
more companion book-length studies to Renewing the Sacred in the works. Some of the material for these studies has
also appeared in the blog. Here is a
preview. The first, tentatively titled, The
Coordinated Vision: Religion, Art, Science, discusses religion, art and
science as humanity’s three main ways to generate and encode
knowledge, and, through the kinds of knowledge they generate, to relate to the
different dimensions of the world. An academic
curriculum that wants to “educate” the whole person should have all three, for
each one helps us create and interpret our experience: religion is our primary
means of relating to the spiritual world; art is our primary relation with the
human world; science is our primary relation with the natural world. Of course all three—religion, art and science—are
involved in all three worlds, but each has its primary relation that the other
two support.
The other study I am calling Connecting
Cosmos and Consciousness: The Structured Forms of Human Spirituality. This will be an historical examination of
such levels and forms of human consciousness as religion, myth, art, poetry, philosophy, and science. It will also have chapters on the origins of humanity's two main languages, words and numbers. It will examine them all as the unfolding manifestations in symbolic structures of a series of great spiritual impulses.
That is, it will attempt to connect these various symbolic structures of human
knowledge with divine revelation. There
will also be discussions of the relation of the unconscious to the conscious
mind; the mutual influence of heart and mind, the development of human
subjectivity, all built upon a notion that humanity is moving out of the realm
of mind into the realm of spirit, just as, starting about 6,000 years ago with
Adam, we moved out of the realm of body into the realm of mind. This coincides with ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s statement
on the three kinds of education: physical, human, and divine. A full system of divine education is being
built. It will take centuries, of
course, but a powerful start, especially with Ruhi, has been made.
I will also have a place on the blog
where interested readers can go to download some of my other essays on various
topics. These essays will be FOR FREE!
So, how to do this? That is where you come in. You will see some additions to the blog. As an experiment, I am now running some ads. Also there is a donations button and a place
where you can go directly to Amazon.com to order your copy (ies) of Renewing
the Sacred when it is available.
Friends, I am attempting to live Baha’u’llah’s statement in The Hidden
Words: “The best of men are those that earn their livelihood by their calling.”
If
you like Renewing the Sacred please recommend it to your friends, your
children’s teachers, your school board, home-schoolers, or anyone else. I hope that the book can be a small contribution
to a new social discourse on education and that discourse can lead to some
social action. Buy it for gifts—Christmas,
Ayyam-i-Ha—or get a study group going. If
you want to donate to a worthy cause, look no further than the right of the
page. It is easy to do.
Finally,
my sincerest thanks for all your support until now. I am glad to be back on the radar. I look forward a long and happy continuation
of our blog connection, especially to reading your comments
Bill
