The Dallas News Religion blog recently reported on a Gallup poll that found, in the United States, confidence in religious institutions is waning.

The confidence level is one of the lowest for institutionalized religion in the 30-plus years that Gallup has conducted the poll. Peaking at 68 percent in May 1975, the figure bottomed out at 45 percent in June 2003.

Read more here.

Workers will soon start hanging thin fishing line high above Palo Alto. Though nearly invisible to most people, it will ease the lives of hundreds of Orthodox Jews while leaving a few others uneasy about the intersection of government and religion.



People who strictly observe Jewish law are prohibited from working on the Jewish Sabbath, which runs from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. "Working" includes driving and carrying or pushing items between private and public domains - for instance, from one's home to the outdoors....







The fishing line will help define an eruv, a symbolic wall surrounding a community that expands the concept of private space, where carrying and pushing - but not driving - are allowed.

Read more about how the Jewish community of Palo Alto, California, USA, is easing the strictures of the Sabbath. Click here.

Emily Wilmer of the Julian Group in Ithaca, New York, USA, has been using a covenant agreement with her directees for about ten years. "It seems to get the message across to potential directees," she says, "of what I can and cannot do vis-a-vis what they are hoping for."

To share your own experiences of clarifying directees' expectations, click here.

To read Emily's covenant agreement, click

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Last year, a group of 50 Unitarian Universalists joined to form the UU Spiritual Directors’ Network. At the same time, spiritual direction groups have been attracting growing interest at both Harvard Divinity School and Andover Newton School of Theology, schools educating about a quarter of all Unitarian Universalists studying for the ministry. [Rev. Jade] Angelica believes that if more Unitarian Universalists knew what spiritual direction was and where it was available, they would want to explore it.

To read more about the Unitarian Universalists network, click here.

The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society has made available for free download their "Tree of Contemplative Practices." It illustrates a variety of practices that have been developed over the past few thousand years.

 

To learn more and to download your copy, click here.

According to the Associated Press, the Vatican recently issued "Ten Commandments" for drivers, addressing the pastoral needs of motorists.

It warned about the effects of road rage, saying driving can bring out "primitive" behavior in motorists, including "impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility or deliberate infringement of the highway code." It urged motorists to obey traffic regulations, drive with a moral sense, and to pray when behind the wheel.

See all ten here. [via Yahoo! News]

Blogger and writer Maggie Ross makes a case for not using the terms "spiritual director" and "spiritual direction."

But there are even deeper reasons for us to be conscious of spatial and linear thinking. These two kinds of thinking represent two models of power, and each of these models of power leads to maturity or immaturity, salvation or a dead end, love or fear, and to each are tied attitudes that link death and power. For this reason alone—and there are many others—we need to get rid of the terms "spiritual director" and "spiritual direction" once and for all. The nuances of these terms immediately set up a hierarchical model in the unconscious that predisposes the relationship to dominance, co-dependence, and immaturity.

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Comment here.

And read Maggie Ross' entire post here. 

"Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher who says the world's problems can only be solved by considering both their secular and spiritual roots, was named recently as the recipient of a religion award billed as the world's richest annual prize."

Click here to read the full story.

The far-flung staff of Spiritual Directors International met in Federal Way, Washington, USA, on June 11 and 12. There are only three full-time staff members in the Bellevue office. Everyone else is a contract employee working from California, Colorado, Kansas, Texas, and Pensylvania.

Please take a moment to evaluate the June 2007 issue of Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. To participate in the current evaluation, click here and follow the online instructions.

 

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A wiki is a wonderful Web-based tool that can help you collaborate and plan with a group. However, it you have never used one, it is difficult to explain the concept. This brief video does a pretty good job of covering the basics. Click here to view it.