Edge Kingsland Edge Kingsland

The story of the gospels tells us that Jesus' vision of the kingdom of God, one that resisted using power over people but centred the vulnerable and suffering instead, was not received well by those who held the power (whether that be religious or political). In this reflection we look at the 2 big prophetic acts that Jesus enacts in the days leading up to his execution, and how this emphasises the motives of those who sought to eliminate Jesus from the conversation. Understanding this story is necessary for us to then go on to make sense of the meaning of Easter and how it might relate to us in the here and now.

This is the first in a series of reflections examining the story of Jesus and the meaning of his life, death and resurrection. There can be a tendency to reduce Jesus down to a magical figure who comes down from heaven to die for us so that we can go to heaven one day in the future, but there is so much more going on in the story. In this first video we look at the context surrounding the life and ministry of Jesus and the ways in which Jesus begins to offer a ‘prophetic imagination’, an alternative way of seeing the world in which those with power do not have the final say, and where there is room made for the suffering, the vulnerable and those on the edges.

In this final reflection in this series on Wholiness, we explore how wholiness should transform the way we see and treat one another, and the kinds of communities we build together.

To be human is to be an embodied creature and yet we can often have complicated relationships with our own bodies. Sometimes our religious traditions have given us negative attitudes toward our own bodies - seeing the body as the site of temptation or sin, seeing emotions as something to be suppressed, seeing sexuality as something to be suspicious of, or simply denying the ways our bodies tell us so much about what is going on for us at any given point in time. So a spirituality of wholiness must help us to move toward a more positive view of embodiment and our spiritual practices should help us move toward integration and wholeness, rather than reinforcing an unncessary splitting between what is spiritual and what is physical.

Our society is defined by a kind of restlessness, and its a kind of restlessness that leaves us in a constant state of some kind of fatigue; the hyperactivity of 21st century Western life, the unlimited choices many of us experience, the explicit and implicit messages we receive about keeping up, about making it, about proving our worth through the things we produce and consume. So what does a spirituality of wholiness offer us in the midst of this? How and why does rest matter to our sense of self, to our relationships, and to the sense of our place in the world? If you'd like to use the reflective questions offered at the end of this recording for yourself, you'll find them at our website: https://www.edgekingsland.co.nz/the-good-stuff

In this episode we explore how wholiness is related to the self. Sometimes religion can be sold to us as needing a kind of self-rejection or the suppression of our selves – because then God can be sold to us as the cure. But our suggestion is spirituality at its best will help us become ‘more ourselves’ rather than less. This is not just good vibes religion – it is a deeply counter cultural narrative that invites us to begin with embracing the self rather than amplifying the inner critic. We also look at how this is not just an individualistic spirituality – to know (and to love) the self requires a grounding in the context of our relationships and connections with others, with those who have gone before us, and with the ground beneath our feet. If you'd like to use the spiritual practice of palms down/palms us at the end of this recording for yourself, you'll find it at our website: https://www.edgekingsland.co.nz/the-good-stuff