Is it really Love? Spiritual Way of the Six Loves

What is it like to experience the presence of God? Drawing from the Contemplative Prayer tradition there are three general ways Gods presence has been described: an intellectual vision or grasp God, an intuitive sense of God, and a social interactive sense of God's presence. The intellectual vision first requires that our emotions are quieted and mistaken images of God are removed from the intellect. With the intuitve sensing of God's presence, the intellect is stilled since God is beyond our full understadning. After the emotions have been cleared of old hurts, resentments and angers, we can begin to sense God as a calming presence,

In the next episode, we will look at the social interactive sense of God's presence.

To see more of Craig's books and music, go to

www.craigowen.net

In this episode, we begin a series on spiritual discernment, how to find out what is Gods will for us in different situations. Or if you prefer, what is the spiritual purpose of one's life. First we look at what will not be covered in this series regarding spiritual discernement. A related issue is how spirituality is defined. In particular, what is meant by the phrase "I am spiritual but not religious?"

Finally, a definition of spirituality is suggested that will be our beginning point.

To see more of Craig's music and books, go to

www.craigowen.net

At last we have climbed the ladder to reach gratitude. Along the way we have looked at several values that help us reach gratitude. Gratitude is possible about little things such as a good meal or a good movie. What we aim for is a broader understanding of gratitude. We look again at Fr. Thomas Merton's advise and discover one more value, humility. With so many values supporting gratitude, how do we keep them up? Gratitude is an ongoing dance between these various values that helps us to be thankful for the many good things in our lives.

In the next episode, we will start a new series on Spiritual Discernment.

To see more of Craig's music and books, go to www.craigowen.net

How can beauty and wonder help us reach gratitude? When we see beauty, we often feel a sense of wonder at what we have witnessed. This sense of wonder can help us break out of our bubble of personal concerns. Beauty and wonder can remind there is so much more in the world besides our own daily routine and struggles. Especially in relation to gratitude, wonder can lead to joy, which can lead to hope, two key values we have looked at on our way to gratitude. If all of us can experience beauty in some form, and a sense of wonder that comes with it, does this not give us some basis to reach out to people beyond our own circle of friends who think like us?

In the next episode, we will finally look at what is gratitude and how these other values relate to gratitude.

To see more of Criag's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

We consider joy in the growing list of values that can lead us to gratitude. Joy is something that most of us have experienced before, but it helps to stop and think more about it. What is joy? Is it the same as happiness or is it different? How do we find joy? One challenge for many of us, how do we hold onto joy when we feel crowded by many different concerns? How do we tell good joy from bad joy? We continue to find that there is a growing network of values that leads us to gratitude: caring, hope, happiness, humility, compassion. To that list we will now add joy plus one extra, reverence. In the next episode we will take a look at beauty as another value that can help lead us to gratitiude.

To see more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

What is hope? We look at some different aspects of what it is. Hope involves resiliency when our plans do not happen as we had imagined. Humility helps us to sort out realistic hope from too high expectations. 'Sometimes we must lose what we wanted before we can find it' is an important lesson for holding onto hope. Hope is a choice, but on what basis do we choose hope? It becomes clear that hope is connected to several things- humility, happiness, healthy spirituality. To see Craig's books and hear his music, go to www.craigowen.net

One of the stepping stones to gratitude is caring. Most of us have experience in caring relationships. The capacity to care maybe what makes humans unique. Caring is central to the Golden Rule in its various forms, giving us a minimal definition of community. When we learn we can have an impact on the lives of others, it can change our own attitude about ourselves dramatically.

To see more of Craig’s books and music go to www.craigowen.net

In this episode, we begin a new direction: How to find gratitude. Gratitude involves a number of attitudes and feelings such as care, joy, hope and beauty. Exploring these in subsequent episodes will bring us to the threshold of gratitude. Fr. Thomas offers advice on how to find a balance between gratitude and humility.

To see more of Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

What is the purpose of righteous anger? Any kind of anger is a short term emotion. It can only be sustained by finding new targets to resent and with which to be angry. Righteous anger raises our awareness, but should lead to compassionate confidence. Compassionate confidence is more durable over time since it involves attitude an beliefs, not just an emotional reaction.

To see more of Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

When we are ultimately loyal to a process of spiritual transformation, how does this reflect on our loyalty to individuals? In this episode, we look at how our lack of awareness of the false self can leave us open to being manipulated by unscrupulous leaders of any kind. This lack of awareness had lead to many bad conseqeunces in the past. How do we undo it?

To see more of Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

How does our ultimate loyalty to spiritual transformation inform our other loyalties? In this episode, we will look at loyalty to institutions and loyalty to beliefs and groups who share our beliefs. While institutions and groups who share our beliefs are important, when we depend on them too much for identity and a sense of purpose, trouble can easily arise. Our ultimate loyalty to spiritual transformation can give us a larger perspective and greater sense of purpose that can keep us from blind loyalty and corrupt righteous anger regarding institutions, beliefs and groups.

To see more of Craig's music, books and photos go to www.craigowen.net

In this episode, we finally have an answer to our question, to what are we ultimately loyal. Consideration is given to a problem we all struggle with: the willingness to say and do anything to hold onto our pride, power and privilege. To counter this problem, we must commit to a process of spiritual transformation, and this is to what we are ultimately loyal. [In episodes 12,13 and 40-52 I explain in detail how this works]. How this ultimate commitment affects our other loyalties will be the topic of the next episode.

To see more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

I suggest three boundaries that we should look for to avoid crossing into corrupt righteous anger. First, we look at the admonition "love your enemies and pray for those who oppose you." What does that really mean? Second, that no political view, religious or ethical belief can enirely fit every situation we encounter. And finally, the most important of the three, "the worst kind of evil is evil that ALMOST makes sense." After exploring these three boundaries, we are ready to answer the question, to what are we ultimately loyal? We will answer that in the next episode.

To see more of Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

We look at the three steps that lead from righteous anger to corrupt righteous anger. Nahum illustrates all three steps. We also look at the book of Jonah, which might have been written as a counterpoint to Nahum. Jonah shares the same mindset as Nahum: the Assyrians must be destroyed. But with Jonah, God wants him to go to preach to the Assyrians in their capital of Nineveh. How serious are Nahum and Jonah about their faith? Have they added nationalism to their faith, making it equal to or more important than their faith? Do we add things to our faith- loyalty to an institution, political ideology or social group-making it equal to or more important than our faith?
In the next episode we will look at what boundaries we should look at to avoid falling into corrupt righteous anger. To learn more about Craig's books and music, go to

www.craigowen.net

When does righteous anger go bad? In this episode we will look at an example of corrupt righteous anger. Looking at a passage from the Hebrew prophet Nahum, there are major differences between his version of righteous anger and what we saw in Amos and Jeremiah. There is no hope of renewal, no concern about the poor in Nahum, only hatred and a desire for the complete destruction of those whom he views as the enemy. How does one cross the line from righteous anger to corrupt righteous anger? We will look at the details in the next episode.

To see craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

What is righteous anger? What is unique about it? These are the questions we will look at in this episode. In examining an example of righteous anger from the Hebrew prophets, we see to what that anger is related. Most of all, what is the source of the moral urgency in the righteous anger of the Hebrew prophets? This brings us to one of the most important questions in these episodes: How does righteous anger go bad? How we answer that question will help us sort out to what are we ultimately loyal, the topic of the next episode. To see more of Craig's books and music, go to

www.craigowen.net

In this episode we are taking a new direction. We start with the challenge that the Book of Revelation makes, Who is your God?, or To what are we ultimately loyal? The theme that will tie together the next few episodes is: Loyalty without integrity leads to fanaticism and idolatry. Exploring what this statement means, we look at the Hebrew prophets' ideal of integrity and the values that support that ideal. If you have read any of the Hebrew prophets, you will notice many angry words from the prophets about not living up to their ideal of integrity. This leads us to two questions: what is righteous anger? Is it good or bad? We will consider these questions in the next episode.

To see more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

In this episode we will wrap up our study of the Book of Revelation. What is the basic message of Revelation, especially to us today in the 21st century? It presents us with two challenges: 1) Don't mistake the ephemeral for the eternal and 2) Who is your God? or put another way, to what are we ultimately loyal? This episode will explore challenge 1). What is the one of the biggest challenges facing us today that the Book of Revelation points out? Challenge #2): too many people are giving their blind loyalty to the wrong things. The result? Factionalism that paralyzes us, keeping us from solving major problems. In following episodes we will explore to what are we ultimately loyal? And how can we tell if our loyalty is misplaced?
To see more of Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

In the last episode I suggested what was the real message and spirituality of the book of Revelation. It is NOT telling us to be passive, waiting for God to intervene in history as all kinds of horrible things happen to the earth. The author of Revelation copied heavily from the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Both Daniel and Revelation were written to religious groups who were being persecuted and oppressed. Both books allegedly predict all kinds of terrible things that will occcur. What actually happened in history after both books were written? We will find that history supports the real meaning of Revelation that I suggested last time.

Next time we will look at what might be the biggest threat facing us in the 21st century.

For more information on my book Why Are We Here? on which this series is based, go to my website at

http://www.craigowen.net

Finally, we are at the point of finding the answers to our question 'what is the spirituality of the Book of Revelation?' As I have commented in previous episodes, what the Book of Revelation is about is answering questions about the problem of evil. If God is all powerful, how can God let the community of faithful believers be persecuted, killed and tortured? [Once again I am drawing upon Dr. Craig Koester's book Revelation and the End of All Things for much of these insights]. We find several answers to this question in the Book of Revelation. What Revelation actually says is not what many people believe. Listen and find the surprising answers, and in doing so, we will find what is the spirituality of the Book of Revelation and what it might be saying to us today.

For more information on this series, go to my website http://www.craigowen.net

Last time we looked at the story of the prophet Jeremiah and king Zedekiah. In this episode we will look at that story more closely and answer the following questions: 1) Does a prophet make prophecies about the distant future or mostly to the people and times in which they live? 2) Do we have free will in what a prophet predicts? 3) When a prophet makes predictions, are they set in stone and unchangeable, and are we powerless to do anything about it?

In the next episode, we will look at what does the book of Revelation say about the problem of evil.

To learn more about this series, go to my website at www.craigowen.net

What is the role of a prophet? Are the predictions of prophets totally accurate? Can predicitons be changed or are they fixed and there is nothing we can do? Do we have free will? These were the questions we left off with last time. In this episode, we look at a story of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. The story takes place in the year 587 BCE when Jerusalem was completley surrounded by the huge army of Babylon. We will find answers to these questions in this story. In this episode we go over the story and its details.

In the next episode we will look at what answers to our questions this story gives us and what insight they give us into the message of the Book of Revelation.

To learn more about this series, go to my website at www.craigowen.net

What do we make of all the scary and gory events portrayed in the Book of Revelation? For example, in chapters 8 & 9, it talks about the seven angels and the events the set in motion such as a third of humanity is killed, a third of the oceans are destroyed, a third of the vegetation is wiped out. Are these things predictions about events in the future we can do nothing to stop, or is it someting else? In wrestling with this questions, we come to the three questions at the heart of our study: 1) What is the role of a prophet? Make predictions about things far in the future or speak to their own day? 2) Are these images of destruction and widespread death events that cannot be stopped? 3) Do we have free will about these things? How we answer these questions will determine what is the spirituality of Revelation, the topic we will look at next time.

To learn more about thi series, go to my website at www.craigowen.net

We look at some of the specific symbolism of Revelation and try to figure out the message of the author. The cycles repeat- seven seals,seven angels and all kinds of bad and scary plagues and disasters . Part of what the author is doing is trying to is scare us into making a choice. We explore what that choice is and what it means for us today.

In the next episode we will look at all of the terrible events that these cycles portray a nd hat they might mean.

To learn more about this series go to my website at www.craigowen.net

Many people believe that the book of Revelation is a roadmap of the End Times, explaining what will happen and when. For this to be true, it is assumed that Revelation reads like a modern story, with a straight line plot containing a clear beginning, middle and end. But is this really the case? This is the issue we will look at in this episode.

I will be drawing upon the insights of Rev. Dr. Craig Koester, a scholar and Professor of New Testament who specializes in the Book of Revelation. His very readable book can be linked by clicking on the title: Revelation and the End of All Things .

In the next episode we will start looking at what the author of Revelation may be trying to say through some of the strange imagery found in the book.

For more information on my series and previous podcasts, go to my website at: www.craigowen.net

In this episode we look at when, where and why the Book of Revelation was written. This will give us a clue about what the message of the book may be. The author of Revelation copies a lot of his style from the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. The circumstances in which both of these books were written are very similar and will reveal a lot about the authors' intentions.

In the next episode we will look at the structure of the book of Revelation whcch will tell us something about how it should be read.

To leanr more about this podcast series go to my website at www.craigowen.net

The Book of Revelation is at the end of the Christian New Testament. Many people believe that this book is a road map or story of how the world will end. Revelation has exerted a strong influence way beyond Christianity. In this first episode, I want to begin a study of some of the themes and imagery in the Book of Revelation. Is it really about the end of the world? Or is it about something else? How should this little book affect our spirituality? If it is really about the end of the world, are we powerless about it? if it is not about the end of the world, what is its message and how does it affect our spirituality, what ever our specific religious beliefs might be? These are the questions we will consider in the next few episodes.

To learn more about this series, see my website at www.craigowen.net

In the last episode I closed with a proposed definition of what is the Kingdom of God. In this episode, we will look at this definition closely to see if common ground can be found between different religious traditions. Some of the values this definition suggest are humility and mercy. Mercy is perhaps the most important value suggested by the proposed definition of the Kingdom of God. I do not think very many people would argue that there is too much mercy in the world.

In the next episode we will begin another topic.

To learn more about Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

So far, we have considered the Kingdom of God as a place, an intution or even a country. We have aslo considered the Kingdom as being found in the afterlife. None these seem to work too well. In this episode, we will look at a better definition: the Kingdom of God as the invisible community of faith. If this is correct, it would be an ever changing domain whose borders are not confined in time and space. This might explain why the Kingdom is considered by some to be here already, yet not completely here.

To learn more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

Last time we looked at the idea of the Kingdom of God as being a country or an institution to which people can belong . In this episode we will consider the Kingdom of God as heaven or the afterlife. When we die, only the good people get into the kingdom and will spend eternal life there. The kingdom as being heaven in the afterlife is the opposite, even a rejection, of the kingdom as an earthly institution. People who take this approach often point to the politics and corruption of earthly institutions, saying that any human organization eventually falls into these problems. How could the true kingdom suffer such things? So the kingdom must be found only in the afterlife, not in earthly life.

Each of these two approaches has a very different understadning of salvation, this earthly life and God's relation to this world. We explore the differences between these two understandings of the kingdom. Is there some middle position between these two views? We will look at that in the next episode.

To see more Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

In this episode we will look at a very old idea of what is the Kingdom of God. It is the belief that the kingdom is a specific geographic location such as a specific tribal or political region. What ever is the religion of the king or queen of the land, that becomes the relgion of all the people. If you live within the borders of this area, you are in the Kingdom of God. If you are outside the borders, you are not in the true Kingdom of God. In later centuries, this understanding grew into the belief that the Kingdom of God was a particular institution rather than a specific location. For example, within Christianity some believe that the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church would be the true kingdom of God.

Each of these approaches to the Kingdom, whether location or institution, has strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, it is very concrete, and shows the need for some sort of boundaries so people can know if they truly belong to a specific religious tradition. On the negative side, viewing outsiders as less worthy than true believers can lead to religious violence against outsiders.

In the next episode we will look an another understanding of the Kingdom of God, where the Kingdom is not of this world.

To learn more about Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

What is the Kingdom of God? This is a central concept in the monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What you may believe about the Kingdom of God will affect other religious beliefs we hold. For example, how do we think of God, as aloof or present in our daily lives? How do we understand salvation? Is it mainly about the life to come or is it more about our l ife in this world? What is the nature of faith? All of these are interconnected and affected by our beliefs about the Kingdom of God.

We will look at several possible meanings of the phrase 'Kingdom of God' in tne next few epoisode. Utimately, we will see if this basic idea can offer some common ground between the various religions traditions.

To see more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net.

Last time we looked at the emotional hole that each of us is carrying around inside and how we chase fears and anxieties about things that do not exist in an effort to fill up this hole . In this episode, we will look at how do we take apart this emotional hole? The key is understanding how the different virtues counteract their opposite vices- how generosity counters greed, self control counters gluttony and self confidence counters sloth or spiritual sadness. The delusional thinking that underlies these and other vices comes from this emotional hole we have within us. In learning to practice the virtues we free up emotional energy that has been wasted on the delusional thinking behind the vices. And we will not fall victim so easily to the fear mongers and hate mongers who try to manipulate us through our emotional holes.

In the next episode we will start in a new direction on a different topic.

To learn more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net

A few episodes back I quoted Ghandi, the great Indian leader and philosopher . Ghandi had once said that the greatest freedom we could achieve is not political or economic, but freedom from the fear in our minds. In this episode we explore what Ghandi may have meant.

A crucial step toward freedom from fear is to learn about the emotional hole that each of us carries around inside. We look at the story of Sam, who had a very demanding and rather angry parent in his father. Without knowing it, Sam developed an emotional hole in himself, a hole in the shape of an angry fist. Sam spent many years trying to fill that hole before he learned it was there.

Each of us has our own unique emotional hole. When we are unaware of it, we can be easily manipulated by others who take advantage of our ignorance about our own emotional hole. All the more reason for us to wake up!

In the next episode, we will look at the mechanics of how we dismantle the emotional hole we carry arind inside of us.

This podcast is based on my new book, Why Are We Here? which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

Last time we looked at the question, to what are we ultimately committed in our journey of spiritual transformation. I had suggested that we should be committed to a specific process of spiritual transformation. But this runs into a problem very quickly. There are many competing traditions of spiritual transformation in the world. How should this situation be approached? How can we avoid the all too common animosity and hatred between competing traditions that often leads to violence? In this episode I offer three suggestions on how to deal with this complex situation.

A few episodes back, I quoted Ghandi, who had said that the greatest freedom people can achieve is to remove the fears that dominate their minds. A major reason for doing this is to stop the way politicians and other leaders manipulate people through their fears. Healthy spirituality can show us how to remove the fear that dominates our minds. How this is done will be explored in the next episode.

This series is based on my new book Why Are We Here? Information on how to obtain a copy of the book can be found at www.craigowen.net

In our journey of spiritual transformation, to what are we ultimately committed? Many people would answer that question by saying "My ultimate commitment is to God ," but what does that mean in concrete terms? We look at three possibilites of things to which we might be ultimately committed: beliefs, institutions and specific process of spiritual transformation. While beliefs and institutions are important, many abuses occur when people are to committed to either of these. How can we be ultimately committed to a process of spiritutal transformation and avoid fanaticism? Even if we are committed properly to a process of spiritual trnasformation, what do we do about so many competing forms of spiritual transformation? We will look at this last question next time.

This series is based on my new book, Why Are We Here?, which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

Why bother with spirituality at all? It seems that many, even most people do not bother with it. Why work so hard at such things as humility, compassion and self-control when these do not seem to be valued by society? I offer a couple of reasons why we should pursue spirituality.

First, imagine what our world would look like if more people practiced true humility? Would there not be less malice, envy and jealousy? Are these not the very things- envy, malice and jealousy- that create so many problems in politics today? What would the world look like if more people practiced self-control, caring and generosity?

Second, we consider the story of Mhatma Ghandi, who lead widespread demonstrations to create the independent state of India in the early twentieth century. Many of Ghandi's followers said that political freedom was the most important kind of freedom- no more British rule, but elections by and for Indians to choose their own destiny. Ghandi argued there is a freedom that is even more basic than political freedom- freedom from fear in our own minds. Politicans and governments use peoples' fears to manipulate and control them. What might the world look like if people were free of fear in their minds, and politicans and governments could no longer manipulate them because of their fears?

Next time we will look at the question, to whom and what are we ultimately loyal in our spiritual journey?

This series is based on my new book Why Are We Here? which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

In this episode we look at the vice called 'sloth' and its matching virtue of caring. Sloth is a very old word, usually it is described as laziness or lack of motivation in modern terms. Someone who is slothful or unmotivated does not want to do much with themselves or their life. But there is more going on here than just laziness. One writer describes sloth as a 'spiritual sadness' where people have basically give up on life. This can describe many people we may have encountered. The usual virtue for sloth is listed as caring, but I suggest that this is not enough to counteract spiritual sadness.

We have now looked at several vices and virtues- Greed and its virtue generosity, Gluttony and its virtue of self-control, now sloth and its virtue of caring. In the next episode we will ask the question "Why bother with the virtues in the first place?" It is a lot of work to learn and practice the virtues. The answer might surprise you.

This series is based on my new book Why Are We Here? which can be found at www.craigowen.net

In this episode we look another key value for healthy spirituality, self control, and its corresponding vice of gluttony. Gluttony is an old english world that is hardly used anymore. Usually it is understood to refer to an obsession with food. However, such overindulgence can apply to many other things such as alcohol, the Internet and other activities. As we saw with the problem of greed, there is an underlying issue of self-delusional thinking with gluttony. This brings us right back to the false self. Once the problem of self-delusional thinking has been identified, we can begin to unravel the false self, and our ability to maintain self control will increase.

Next time we will look at the key value of caring and its corresponding vice of sloth or apathy.

This series is based on my new book, Why Are We Here? , which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

In this episode we will look at the value of generosity and its opposite, greed. How we define greed will be depend on where and when we live. Greed is not only about money but can include such things as power and recognition. Behind the problem of greed there is a specific self-delusion or faulty thinking, which is connected to the false self.

In the next episode we will look at another value that is important to have for healthy spirituality.

To learn more about the book on which this series is based, Why Are We Here?, go to www.craigowen.net

What happens when we go through spiritual transformation? The false self is dismantled. A brief description of this process is offered. [For a more detailed explanation of the unraveling of the false self, see Episodes 12 & 13 on What is Spiritual Love?] In this episode we will concentrate on the two most basic values that we learn in spiritual transformation: compassion and humility. A definition and explanation of humility and compassion is discussed. In the next episode we will look at some additional values that we learn through spiritual transformation.

For more information on the book on which these podcasts are based, Why Are We Here?, see my

website at www.craigowen.net

In this episode we look at a definition of healthy spirituality. One of the key ideas is that spirituality is a lifelong processs, not a one time event. We also need to be in community with others for the process of spirituality to work. Healthy spirituality fully engages our minds, it does not require us to believe blindly.

In the next episode, we will look at some of the specific values that are involved with the process of healthy spirituality.

This series is based on my new book, Why Are we Here? , which can be found at www.craigowen.net

When someone says "I am spiritual but not religious," what do they mean? In this episode we will look at two possible answers. One is that someone shares some of the beliefs of a particular tradition but does not participate in organized religious observances. A second answer could be a person who has pieced together beliefs from several religious traditions. While these answers are helpful, they are missing a key element of being spiritual- commitment to a community.

In the next episode we will look what I believe is the best understanding of spirituality.

This series is based on my new book, Why Are we Here? , which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

Before we can get an idea of what is healthy spirituality, we must have an idea of how religion is not the same thing as spirituality. In this episode, we will look at what I think is a good understanding of religion. Many people, perhaps most, are comfortable with organized religious services, some simple forms of devotion and activities with their religious community. They seek nothing more in their religious faith. But for others, especially younger people, this is not enough. People with a more mystical attitude want to experience the divine in their daily lives. They might tell people that "I am spiritual but not religious." Here we begin to see how spirituality is not the same as religion. Next time we will look at what people mean by saying they are spiritual but not religious.

This series is based on my new book, Why Are we Here? , which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

In this episode we are moving in a new direction. This will be the first of several episodes that looks at the question 'What is healthy sprituality?' We do not have to look far to see examples of bad spirituality, so it is important to know what the good kind looks like. Before we can answer that question, though, we must look at several issues. First, what is religion? What is faith? Is spirituality different from religion and faith?

In this first installment, we will look at a couple of definitions of religion, one positive and one negative. We will learn something from each that helps us get closer to a workable understanding of what is religion.

This new series is based on my new book Why Are We Here? which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

Perhaps the ultimate question we all face is do we survive beyond death? In the context of this series, the question would become 'Does love survive beyond death?' Many of you listening have lost loved ones, as have I. You cannot help but wonder does the love we still feel for the ones we lost tell us anything? Is it futile to still love someone who is no longer here, or is it a sign of something beyond this life?

In the the next episode we will start a new series about faith and spirituality, based on my recent book WHY ARE WE HERE?

To view the book on which this series is based, Why Are We Here? go to www.craigowen.net

In this episode, we will look at a love that is closely related to Marital Love, which is Family love. I offer a suggested definition of family love and then examine it phrase by phrase. Not everyone who is in a marriage chooses to have children, but for those who do, my suggested definition might be helpful.

In the next episode, we will look at the question of whether or not love survives beyond death.

This podcast series is based on my book, The Six Faces of Love , which can be viewed at www.craigowen.net

When is a marriage no longer workable? This is a difficult question to answer in a short podcast. I discuss the spirituality of marital love to offer a suggested answer to the question. I look at two common mistakes couples make regarding the spiritual stages and rates of spiritual growth of their partners. Very seldom are a husband and wife at the same spiritual stages or experiencing spiritual growth at the same rate. Failing to understand these two things can cause stress in a marriage that is completely unnecessary. I also offer one measure of the health of a marriage regarding both partners' approach to each other's spiritual growth.

In the next episode we will look at family love, one that is closely related to but not the same as marital love.

To find Craig's book"The Six Faces of Love " and his music go to www.craigowen.net

When is a couple ready to get married? In the past, one answer was that individuals must first do therapy and become emotionally mature before they should get married. When I gave pre-marital counseling to couples and tried to use this answer, I found something unusual. No couple I counseled seemed to meet this test, where both people had completley reached emotional maturity. I discuss how I modified my approach in counseling engaged couples, changing the 'therapuetic' model that was unrealistic in its demands.

Next time we will look at two closely related questions: How do you keep a marriage going? and How do you know when a marriage will no longer work?

To see Craig's book The Six Faces of Love and his music go to www.craigowen.net

In this episode, we begin one of several in a series on what is marital and family love? These first few will focus on what is marital love. We begin by recalling Peter and Cheryl, the couple we looked at in the episodes about romantic love. Peter and Cheryl have worked through there problems, and now they desire to stay together indefinitely. Are they ready for marriage? I suggest a definition of marital love to help answer the question Peter and Cheryl are facing about should they get married. In my definition I suggest that companionship is the heart of marital love.

How can a couple reach the point of being ready for marriage? This is the question we will take up in the next episode.

To see Craig's book The Six Faces of Love and his music go to .www craigowen.net