How to Be an Adult in Faith and Spirituality

by Richo, David

• ISBN13: 9780809146918
• ISBN10: 0809146916
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-31
• Publisher: Paulist Pr

Summary

Part of psychology health is growing up not only in mind but in how we see the questions of faith and spirituality. To this end this book provides a detailed and straightforward vision of what faith and spirituality can look like in adult consciousness.

Author Biography

David Richo, PhD, MFT, is a psychotherapist and teacher who combines Jungian, transpersonal, and mythic perspectives in his work. His books focus on psychological and theological themes. Dr. Richo teaches at Esalen and at Buddhist and Catholic retreat centers in California and elsewhere. He is the author of How to Be an Adult, When Love Meets Fear, and The Sacred Heart of the World. His website is davericho.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Healthy Self, Healthy Beliefs	p. 9
The Power of Childhood	p. 14
Stages of Growth and Faith	p. 16
Auditing Our Religion	p. 48
Pondering the Criteria of an Adult Religion	p. 22
What Is Religion?	p. 26
Four Elements	p. 29
Early Religion	p. 35
The Religion of Patriotism	p. 40
When Patriarchy Rules	p. 43
What About Spirituality?	p. 50
A Cosmic Dimension	p. 54
Egoic Religion and Spiritually Aware Religion	p. 55
How Spirituality Makes Love Universal	p. 57
Showing the Wholeness That We Are	p. 59
What Is Faith?	p. 64
Faith and Fact	p. 68
Room for Both Science and Faith	p. 70
Firsthand Faith	p. 72
Poems, Not Headlines	p. 74
When Faith Falls into the Void	p. 77
The Void and Depression	p. 83
Walking through the Valley of the Shadow	p. 85
Practicing Adult Faith	p. 88
We Accept Life's Givens	p. 88
We Are Open to Many Traditions	p. 89
We Appreciate Metaphor	p. 91
We See Prayer Differently	p. 95
We Are Free from Superstition	p. 99
We Are Free from Obsession with Religion	p. 103
We Ponder the Afterlife	p. 106
What Is Meant by God?	p. 112
Out There or in Here?	p. 112
The Supernatural	p. 118
Three More Ways of Describing the Divine	p. 121
A Mystical View	p. 121
The Depth View	p. 123
An Evolutionary View	p. 126
Mystery and Metaphor	p. 130
Are There Atheists?	p. 134
How We Might Take God Personally	p. 137
God and Evil	p. 141
Noticing Our Own Dark Side	p. 145
Befriending the Shadow through Loving-kindness	p. 150
Epilogue: The Call to Be Cosmic	p. 153
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