Art, Science, Religion, Spirituality
6 Tuesday Evenings
Beginning February 17 and ending March 24 • 6:00 to 7:30pm
An exploration of David White's book Art, Science, Religion, Spirituality: Seeking Wisdom and Harmony for a Fulfilling Life. Each week we will delve into the readings from the book, share our insights and have deep discussions.
We humans tend to create categories around which to organize our thoughts, but we don't live from those categories. Living happens from a moving center that includes every imaginable aspect of life: the psychological, political, emotional, rational, cultural, sexual, spiritual, religious, scientific, artistic, sociological, economic, and more. It can be valuable to study the separate parts, but the only way to a fulfilled life is to act and move from the point of intersection that contains them all.
Swirling around this center are many currents that arise from both the world outside and from within ourselves. Everyone has motivations and expectations involving food, shelter, sex, pleasure, adventure, power, wealth, fame, achievement, relationship, spiritual fulfillment, and on and on. It is not hard to think about these separately, but at the living edge, where life happens, these currents do not exist in individual boxes that can be examined one by one; rather, they constantly mix and mingle. Nor do these thought-boxes have actual boundaries, but only arbitrary and shifting shades of distinction.
It is no wonder, then, that the major fields of human knowledge began with an interrelated search for the good, the true, and the beautiful. A core motivation we humans have always had, beyond taking care of our basic needs, has been to find a meaningful and fulfilled life. From our beginnings, this has involved finding wisdom concerning what is good, knowledge about what is true, and a relationship to that which is harmonious and beautiful. For thousands of years, the world's wisdom traditions have said that there is more to life than the everyday things on which we spend much of our time, and many of the best and brightest have taken up the challenge and pursued wisdom.
~Excerpt from the Introduction
Copies of David's books are available Here
and at the Meaningful Life Center.
Workshop Leaders
Jerry Askew
Jerry is a husband, father, teacher, spiritual director and retreat leader. He is an ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee, currently assigned to St. John’s Cathedral in Knoxville. Since arriving in Knoxville in 1985, he has served as a university dean, foundation president, healthcare executive and on the boards of over 60 nonprofit organizations at the local, state and national levels.
Jerry received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a Morehead Scholar, MS from the University of Memphis and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. He and his wife Robyn, an attorney, have two adult children.
Jerry has led On Being Human, Third Half of Life, Sacred Reading and other workshops.
Ronda Redden Reitz
Ronda is a Clinical Psychologist and depth therapist practicing primarily in the Jungian tradition. A devotee of the inner life, Ronda is at home in the imaginal world. Both personally and professionally, she enjoys dreamwork and using dream images to spark creative endeavors. Off and on, she pursues analytical training. Ronda has been married to Carl for 47 years. Together, they have three children and four grandchildren. The children are wonderful; the grandchildren perfect. For nearly 25 years, Ronda has been involved with the Meaningful Life Center and its predecessor, the Quest for Meaning. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, hiking, gardening, and needlework, primarily knitting and needlepoint.