Benjamin Riggs's Blog

This post is an excerpt from my book, Finding God in the Body: A Spiritual Path for the Modern West.
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The Power of Love.

On the spiritual path, we will fall short many times. It is easy to become impatient, frustrated, and overwhelmed. That is why love is so important.



Love sees life in everything. It recognizes the life that abides within every creature.

There can be no inalienable right to a gun because the vast majority of earth's inhabitants predate the existence of firearms by thousands of years. The inalienable right is to defend one's life and property, and to this end, assault rifles and high capacity clips are not required.


The Second Amendment is not explicitly about defending oneself against a tyrannical government, as many gun

Faith is an indispensable component of the human experience.  Faith can be religious or humanistic, spiritual or even political, but when faith goes to the wayside, hope is lost, despair creeps in, and life seems impossible. The claim that faith can be political does not mean that faith should be political. Politics is not worthy of our ultimate concern. It is worthy of serious

"Faith is pejoratively described as believing a claim that lacks evidence. I would say (with William James) that faith is the capacity to act where doubt persists. This capacity is also called courage and willingness; faith is just its religious moniker. If we lift faith from its religious context, this capacity is revealed to be essential. Imagine life without faith. What domain of life

Democracy is beholden to the will of the people, not truth. It is up to the people to align their will with truth. But what standard of truth will be used? The Truth or a truth? When we speak from the perspective of "I" we honor our truth. This subjective truth consists of our past experiences, and the thoughts and feelings authored by those experiences. The perspective of "I" is

There can be no inalienable right to a gun because the vast majority of earth's inhabitants predate the existence of firearms by thousands of years. The inalienable right is to defend one's life and property, and to this end, assault rifles and high capacity clips are not required. The Second Amendment is not explicitly about defending oneself against a tyrannical government, as many gun

"It is true that in relationship we join with others in a common life, but it is a misconception that in relationship we cease to be individuals.  The common life has its own structure, which distinguishes it from the order of individual life, but that common life is authentic and vigorous, only when it is fashioned after the rhythms of individual life. A relationship is a transpersonal

"Spiritual principles are abstractions until they are professed in the details of daily living. The person who fails to enter the arena, dispels of those details, rendering their moral pronouncements un-true⸺not false, but not yet made real. It is in the details that ideals are tested, tempered, and proven. It is in the run of life that principles become tried-and-true. Relationship is

Erected between the Church and the State is a "Wall of Separation."But within the envelope of my skin, there is no line of demarcation segregating politics and spirituality. 

We do not live in a totalitarian state. As members of a democratic society, we have a civic duty. Our government is held in check by "we the people." In a democratic system of government, politics is just another

1) As humans, our strength has always been in numbers, that is to say, tribes. We are, therefore, inclined towards tribalism. 2) When people incorporate, they can achieve bigger goals (Two minds are better than one). The bigger the tent the better. Diversity is therefore better (if you can make it work), because diversity is always going to be bigger. 3) Ideas grow the tent beyond