Category Archives: KevKast

52-Estrangement

 

 

We all live into social tribes, groups, bands, and families. These social groups give us an identity and a sense of belonging and acceptance. But what happens when, for one reason or another, we find ourself on the outside of the group? What is next? 
In this podcast and post I share that while this experience feels so bad, it is actually a really good sign that we have outgrown our formative containers. We just might be graduating to another community that has also been called out from the herd. I will show that this is the spiritual path as we leave behind our small, external identity and find our true self in God.

51-Quantum and other kinds of Entanglement

 

Quantum mechanics forces scientists to employ an entirely different set of rules in order to make sense of their findings. Newtonian physics and the laws of our physical world do not comport in the quantum universe. While science may not have categories or terms for non-physical based reality in the quantum sciences, they are striving to find them.

Spirituality on the other hand is precisely the category for non-physical reality where the laws of physics, time and space have no bearing. Despite these discoveries, science and religion are still not necessarily agreeing with each other and it has to do with the entanglements that both hold on to.

50-Striving and Limping

 

 

We all face countless headwinds in our lives. Nearly everything we do is met with some sort of obstacle, hinderance, or difficulty. When it comes to our suffering and wrestling with things in life, there are a lot of unhelpful ideas, namely that such struggles mean that God cannot exist or that he/she has forgot about us. In this post I explore the renaming of Jacob and how we can find true beauty and meaning right in the midst of our striving. Our struggles are not the absence of divine grace, but the very means of it.

49- What is the Point?

 

All of the things we enjoy are loaded with frustration, headwinds, disappointments, and expense. Have you ever got to the place where you wondered, “What is the point of all of this?” If so, then this podcast is for you. I will explore both the lower and the higher motivations that keep us coming back for more. If we lose sight or have never been able to identify our higher motivation, then our pursuits will bog us down, distract us, and even depress us. But if we can keep an eye on the wide-angle lens, then our pursuits enroll us into a form of spiritual satisfaction, and that is a gateway into a very fulfilling life.

48-Duty is deficient.

 

I know that our world really loves and honors a sense of duty, but I think we can do better. In this post I share why I strive never to do anything out of a sense of duty. I have learned that duty is a deficient motivation for any action. I will share how we can access the single greatest motivator in the universe, the law of love. If we are able to access love, all of our obligations transform into pleasures. Duty creates a begrudging prison for us, while love frees us and compels us to do the same tasks on an entirely different level. If your life is a living hell of obligations to everyone else’s agenda, then this podcast is for you.

 

47-Lazarus: Historical Jesus or Cosmic Christ

 

 

This is a blog post from 2014 that discusses a very important nuance. If you aren’t a “religious” person, don’t dismiss this post too quickly. You see the story of Lazarus exposes two assertions about Jesus and the power that raised a dead guy back to life. In this post I’ll show the two assertions that emerge from stories like this and why the most common way to view this creates roadblocks for modern people to access resurrection language. After this, you’ll be able to move resurrection from an unprovable assertion after you die, to an an disputable global reality within the life you are presently living.

46- Logic and Double Talk

A lot of modern people see the world through a scientific worldview. This causes some people to diminish spirituality as unreliable because much of it is not empirically provable.  In this podcast I show how the scientific worldview is actually borrowing from a spiritual or non-empirically based perspective in order to make sense of science. This should open up our dialogue about how ultimate reality contains much more than matter and motion and then we can see the fundamental principal of spirituality and just how scientific it really is.

45-What is Freedom?

 

What if Freedom isn’t something for which we must fight or defend? What if the war machine, and the polarized political environment has got it all wrong? What if freedom isn’t a zero sum game? In this special post, I prove that freedom is an expansive, generative by-product of the spiritually awakened heart. What appears to be too personal and powerless on the macro scale turns out to be the only thing that can change our uncertain world. I even provide a test to see if we are up to the task.

 

44- Go Your Way!

 

Healing always means liberation. You may have heard the parable of the ten lepers, but if you think it is about gratitude then you are missing much of the story. In this post I uncover how this story vividly shows us that changing our circumstances may not really put an end to our oppression and suffering. In fact it may just be replacing our oppression and suffering with a different kind. To truly live free, we must find the middle way just as the subject in our story.

43-Pick up your matt!

 

Get ready for a sermon that you are not likely to hear at your corner church. In this episode I explore the story of the invalid who sat at the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years. I hope you give this a listen because there is a nuance here that can really liberate us. I can’t believe it was here all along and even though I have read and heard this story over a hundred times, I never caught this. I hope it inspires you and frees you. I look forward to your feedback.