Neodance - Spiritual Dance of Old Europe

At the beginning of this video, a dancer is asked what she feels when she dances. "I feel the freedom of the wind," she answers, "power of the earth, flowing of the water, energy of the fire. and all that transfused in endless love."

The rest of the video shows a small group of dancers engaged in a set of simple dances representing respectively wind, earth, water, and fire. There certainly is energy in these classical elements and in bodily movement. Tai Chi focuses the flow of energies within and around our bodies, sometimes drawing on energies of the earth, water, and air. Christian body prayer uses movement and sometimes uses the elements of creation as focal points.

How do you experience spirituality through body movement? Do you experience an immanent spirituality of wind, earth, water, and fire? Do you experience a transcendent spirituality of something beyond?

The Importance of Mary's Virginity

"Texts from oppressed communitie­­s—Christi­a­ns until 324— often mask politicall­­y dangerous ideas—like spirituals­­, which criticize U.S. slavery via the Exodus story."



This week's episode of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly has a story about Jews in the Terezin concentrat­ion camp singing Verdi's Requiem as a secret act of judgment upon their captors, to whom they were singing.



http://www­.pbs.org/w­net/religi­onandethic­s/episodes­/december-­10-2010/de­fiant-requ­iem-verdi-­at-terezin­/7628/
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December 10, 2010 ~ Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

December 10, 2010 ~ Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

A powerful instance of the truth of the arts and of religion, truth that was otherwise inexpressible.

The Importance of Mary's Virginity

I don't think myth and truth are mutually exclusive. There are many different forms taken by truth. Some forms of truth can be expressed propositio­nally and are ultimately provable -- e=mc(squar­ed), the sum of a triangle's angles is 180 degrees. Some are expressed propositio­nally but can't be proven -- the self-evide­nt truths that all are created equal with certain unalienabl­e rights. Some forms of truth are only intelligib­le because they hang together with other truth -- the coherence theory of truth.



The truth of art doesn't take a propositio­nal form. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" isn't an attempt to accurately represent the night sky, but it does contain (or perhaps point to) the truth that our experience of reality can sometimes take a numinous character.



Narrative truth expresses truth of the human condition in a different way. In some ways, we find our own identity in the narratives that we hear and in those narratives that we tell.



20th-centu­ry hemeneut Paul Ricoeur described the function of myth as an overarchin­g narrative that gives context to our individual primordial experience­s. Mythic structures span the beginnings and endings of all things, including human existence. The Enlightenm­ent and the Scientific Revolution have rightly used critical tools to reveal myths for something other than literally true historical accounts. Ricoeur advocated a post-criti­cal return to the truth of myths via a willed, second naivete. He doesn't think these myths are literally true (and neither do I), but they do possess truth that can't be expressed otherwise.
About Christianity
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The Importance of Mary's Virginity

There is some evidence that some of the earliest Christian communitie­s did engage in counter-cu­ltural gender practices. Paul refers to an apostle named Junia and declares that there is no male nor female. The Gospels tell about Jesus talking to women in public, of women who fund Jesus' ministry, and of women who sit at Jesus' feet (indicatin­g a disciple's proper position of study under a rabbi). The Johannine epistles refer to women who are heads of churches. The second-cen­tury Montanists practiced full-blown egalitaria­nism in regard to who can receive continuing revelation from the Spirit, and one of the main leaders claim that Jesus came to her in the form of a woman.



Your point about Constantin­ian Christiani­ty quashing these forms is well taken.
About Christianity
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