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Podcasts
Pastor Ken McIntosh Preaching: Can I help You? Appropriate Ways to talk about God
Ken McIntosh Preaching: Can I help You? Appropriate Ways to talk about God: 2 Corinthians 4:1-7, Feb. 5th, 2012 Click the play button hear the latest message. ... read more
Pastor Ken Preaching at The Journey: January 22, 2012, ‘Everyone’s A Minister’
Pastor Ken Preaching at The Journey: January 22, 2012, Everyone’s A Minister Click the play button hear the latest message. ... read more
Pastor Joe Maniglia preaching at Journey: January 15th, 2012
Pastor Joe Maniglia preaching at Journey: January 15th, 2012: The Image of God and Dr. King’s Dream Click the play button hear the latest message. ... read more
Podcast Archive
 Kenneth McIntosh is husband to Marsha and the father of grown children Jonathan and Eirené. Ken teaches, writes, and counsels for a broad spectrum of audiences, always hoping to be a “soul friend” (anamchara) to fellow travelers on life’s journey. He teaches Comparative Religions at Coconino Community College in Flagstaff, Arizona, and is the author of more than a dozen published books, most recently Water from an Ancient Well (Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on January 25, 2012, 10:39 am
These bumper stickers seem to reflect the current thinking in America regarding Christian faith and the science of origins.
My own understanding is more along the lines of this bumper sticker.
I was raised by two parents trained in the hard sciences: my father was a research chemist who helped develop Heparin for widespread medical use, among other worthwhile endeavors. I grew up surrounded by practicing researchers, and that instilled some lifelong beliefs in me. First, I saw that most people in this field are exacting: they have a “no bull” pragmatic approach to life—if the facts don’t fit a pet theory, they kill it and find something else that corresponds better with reality. Second, I realized that many scientists work relentlessly in the service of humankind. Yes, there are those who build better bombs, but my father was not one of those, and neither were his co-workers... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on January 17, 2012, 1:03 pm
 Recently I’ve been reading Peter Enns' book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. It is deep and thorough: not the kind of book one can skim through and give a review, so I’m not going to venture an appraisal of the book until I finish it (and that might be a while). But I want to reflect briefly on a quote that jumped out at me. Enns Says: I have found again and again that listening to how the Bible itself behaves and suspending preconceived notions (as much as that is possible) about how we think the Bible ought to behave is refreshing, creative, exciting, and spiritually rewarding.
I’ve pored over the Bible in various translations for more than three decades now, and I find those words to be truer with each new reading. What are some of the “preconceived notions” that tame and limit our appreciation of the Bible?
-It must be “God’s little instruction book... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on January 12, 2012, 10:37 am
Please allow me to begin with a disclaimer and then a testimony (though church services and commercial events usually reverse that order).
The disclaimer is that I’m not a real fan of personality-type inventories. I’ve done the “four temperaments” (which go back to the Greek physician-philosopher Hippocrates) and the Meyers-Brigg personality types (much more complex, and based on Jungian principles). They’re interesting, but my assessment is that such devices are merely ways to squeeze infinitely complex human souls into a limited set of boxes—not very helpful for me. And I realize, as I write this, that my blog readers may have the same response to the Enneagram in its various formats.
Having done the disclaimer, now I proceed to the testimony. I recently spent three days in silent retreat at a monastery. As I arrived at my quarters for the retreat, I noticed a small shelf of Christian self-help books... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 23, 2011, 2:29 pm
It has been a whirlwind season of Advent, but I was able to spend a few days just before Christmas on a private retreat at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Phoenix. The Monastery is in a Latino section of the city populated largely by Mexican immigrants and Mexican Native Yaqui Indians.
If I wasn’t in the Christmas mood before my arrival, I got into it quickly. The neighborhoods around the monastery were thoroughly decked out with lights, large figures and blow-up- light-up outdoor dioramas—everything from the Holy Family to Santa Claus on a Harley.
At the monastery itself, Christmas décor was evident both outdoors and in. Outdoors, the lovely life size statue of Nuestra Senora (Guadalupe herself) was festooned with cloth roses and live poinsettias—a festive ribbon of red as bright as the sun rays that accompanied her appearance to Juan Diego.
Adjacent to the Virgin, there was a life- size nativity with realistic mannequins of Mary, Joseph and the Baby surrounded by lit-up animal figures... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 21, 2011, 9:39 am
It’s amazing how many people—men and women alike—love to handle and / or collect swords. Here’s another excerpt from The Quest for King Arthur by myself and Ellyn Sanna—this time on the symbolism of sharp pointy objects. The Quest for King Arthur is now available from Amazon’s Kindle store (print version coming soon).
This Bronze sword in the Prehistoric and Celtic Museum in Dingle, Ireland, predates the age of Arthur—but it was doubtless a weapon of great value and importance to its Celtic warrior owner.
King Arthur not only has a realm of authority, but he also has an instrument of power by which he exercises that authority—his sword Excalibur. As an archetype, the sword symbolizes the masculine potency we all possess, whether we are male or female: the power to change the world... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 19, 2011, 9:20 am
In this selection from my book Water from an Ancient Well: Celtic Spirituality for Modern Life, I go over the historical and theological aspects of the Celtic Christians’ love for nature. I came across some interesting ideas while researching this section, including the Christian application of panentheism and one of the first examples of ecological restoration.
Familiarity with the Welsh Coast—like this part of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path—must have inspired Taliesin’s love of nature’s beauty.
References to Celtic art, poetry, and liturgy that celebrate nature are too many to name. The Welsh poem titled “The Loves of Taliesin” (and attributed to that greatest of Celtic bards) is just one example:
Beautiful it is that God shall save me.
Beautiful too the bright fish in the lake,
Beautiful too the sun in the sky,
The beauty of an eagle on the shore when the tide is full. . . .
Beautiful the covenant of the Creator with Earth,
The beauty in the wilderness of doe and fawn,
The beauty of wild leeks and the berries of harvest,
The beauty of the heather when it turns purple,
Beautiful the pastureland. . . .
The beauty of water shimmering,
The beauty of the world where the Trinity speaks,
But the loveliest of all is the Christ
Who lives in all beauty.
For the ancient Celts, the Divine beauty revealed in nature was inseparably entwined with the strands of Christian doctrine. Christ’s death on the Cross, for example, was not just for humankind; it was a cosmic event that touched the entire natural world.
In the suffering of Christ, all creation suffered. For the Celts, this conclusion was inescapable, considering the closeness of the Creator to creation. The twelfth-century Book of Leinster told an ancient tale of King Conchubar, who asks Bucrach, a druid, what is causing some unusual changes in creation and the eclipse of the sun and the moon at their full... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 14, 2011, 9:47 am
This posting is another excerpt from The Quest for King Arthur a collaborative effort by Ellyn Sanna and me. There’s something inside me that yearns for tangible connection between mythic historical events and my own experience. I think that’s why I love museums and artifacts: the thought that I can almost touch something that a great hero of the past (maybe even an ancestor of mine) once handled. Likewise, it’s what takes me on pilgrimage—pilgrimage to the Holy Land of the Middle East and to the holy lands of Celtic legend. So I’ve pursued Arthur (semi-historical and shadowy being that he is) on successive trips to the British Isles. I was delighted with the way that Ellyn took my ruminations on Arthurian geography and applied them to questions for personal reflection, in the section below.
Arthur’s kingdom is a land of magic and mystery that at the same time is bound to the actual geography of the British Isles. Camelot, the center of Arthur’s power, may be Cadbury Hill in Somerset—or Caerleon in Wales... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 12, 2011, 9:25 am
Ask a person what they know about Celtic Christian spirituality and the first response (if they know enough to give any response at all) is usually something about “appreciation for nature.” In my book Water from an Ancient Well: Celtic Spirituality for Modern Life. I’ve tried to focus on some of the lesser-known but equally important aspects of this ancient faith, and hence several chapters on other topics come before this one. Having said that, the Celts’ love for the natural world is indeed one of the most pronounced and winsome aspects of their faith.
You care for the land and water it;
you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water.
. . . the hills are clothed with gladness.
The meadows are covered with flocks
and the valleys are mantled with grain;
they shout for joy and sing.
—Psalm 65:9–13
 Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 9, 2011, 1:00 pm
This is the second selection from The Quest for King Arthur, a new book from Anamchara now available on Kindle (print version coming soon!). I did some research and suggested ideas for the book, Ellyn Sanna actually wrote it. It’s a little book, yet it provides plenty of material to get the reader thinking about the topic itself and life in general. The excerpt below is the second section of the book, introducing the Arthur of history and literature.
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There is something about this story that’s deeper than what meets the eye.
Storytellers have dressed it up in countless ways,
and yet at its bones,
the story never changes.
—Yolanda Jane
Arthur’s story has inspired storytellers over the centuries—and it continues to inspire them. From Broadway to Disney, from children’s books to epic fantasies, King Arthur and his knights live and breathe in countless ways... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 7, 2011, 8:24 am
‘Tis the season of hustle and bustle, and you no doubt are very busy shopping, going to parties, finishing school projects before the break, and so on. In spite of the mayhem—better, to spite the tide of meaningless and consumerist holiday events—I find it valuable to set aside time for reading some tried-and-true Christmas classics: stories that capture the spiritual heart of the season. Of course, it behooves one to read the Nativity portions of Matthew and Luke and get right to the heart of the matter. Yet I assume that people hear these at church or home Advent readings. There’s something special about time-honored seasonal stories: even those that are merely decades old attain a sort of sanctity from repetition over the years.
There’s also something precious about re-reading familiar stories. Doing so reinforces the sense that this practice has become tradition, even if the tradition is a solitary one. Furthermore, I find it surprising how much seems new when I re-read really good stories... Read More.
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Posted by Kenneth McIntosh on December 5, 2011, 2:43 pm
This week’s selection from Water from an Ancient Well: Celtic Spirituality for Modern Life concludes the section on what the ancient Celts called “Green Martyrdom”—or, in modern parlance, spiritual disciplines. At the links below you can find the first two installments of this chapter: the first is an analogy with a rather strange fitness club; the second is the history and theology of asceticism, and why that word is healthier than many moderns think it is. In this final section of that chapter, I look at the idea of spiritual disciplines in term of practical application.
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Many of us tend to distrust the spiritual practices of our parents’ generation. We’re disillusioned with Christianity that has “the form of godliness” but none of its real power (2 Timothy 3:5). We’re jaded and cynical about things like daily prayer times, and we’re quick to say, “That’s legalism... Read More.
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