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Book details
  • Genre:RELIGION
  • SubGenre:Spirituality
  • Language:English
  • Series title:No BS Spirituality for the Rest of Us
  • Series Number:1
  • Pages:304
  • eBook ISBN:9781617928796

Choosing Authenticity

Religion Is Not Enough

by Richard N. Southworth, M.A.

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Overview

This book is about Choosing Authenticity. It is about developing a unique personal spiritual practice that will lead to growth, transformation, and conversion of heart. It is about discovering who we are called to be and incarnating those discoveries into the way we actually experience and live our day-to-day lives.

Description

Contemporary Religion is not enough. The religious imperatives of belief, ritual, experience, community, service, and values are not enough. Contemporary Culture is not enough. The cultural imperatives of acceptance, success, power, wealth, and pleasure are not enough. Both religion and culture are important, even crucial to living a full life, but they are not enough. Choosing authenticity is the only thing that is enough. Choosing to live our lives in a way that integrates the religious and cultural imperatives and moves us toward wholeness and holiness is the only thing that is enough. We long for a No BS Spirituality that changes the way we actually experience and live our lives. We need spiritual practice that facilitates that growth and transformation and conversion of heart. Our deepest desire is for our active lives to actually become more and more an authentic expression of who we are and who we are called to be by that Mysterious Other we call God. We long for spiritual practice that actually moves us forward on our own unique Journey Toward Spiritual Maturity. My desire is that these reflections will respond to that longing. Read, reflect, and enjoy!

About the author

Richard Southworth lives in Mechanicsville, Virginia with his wife Winnie and his son Mark. His oldest daughter, Teresa Parr, lives a few blocks away with her husband Julian and their three children, Nathan, Daniel, and Rachel. His youngest daughter, Michelle Evans, also lives nearby. Richard received a Bachelor's degree in General Studies with concentrations in Religious Studies, Psychology, and the Administration of Justice and Public Safety from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. He also has a Master of Art's degree in Formative Spirituality from the Institute of Formative Spirituality at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has considerable teaching experience including college courses, church seminars, retreats, Marriage Encounter weekends, and presentations at training academies and professional conferences. His experience includes being a Trooper, Sergeant, and Special Agent with the Virginia State Police, Administrator of a non-denominational retreat center, Investigator with the Virginia Office of the Public Defender, Criminal Investigator with the Virginia Office of the Attorney General, and Investigator and Special Investigations Manager for a national health insurance company. This broad based education and experience finds its way into his writing and teaching. It leads him to focus on those foundational spiritual truths that cut across both religious and secular traditions. It provides a crucial balance between spirituality and the real world of people, events, and things. He is currently retired and writing and teaching about the spiritual life.