Who is Mike Morrell? What on heaven & earth is this blog about?

Welcome to my blog! I’m grateful that you’re choosing to spend some time here.

If this is your first time here – or your first time in awhile – you might be wondering: Just who is this ‘Mike Morrell’ character, anyway?

You and me both.

And y’know, I really wish we could do this over a beverage of our choosing, rather than via this pixelated frame. Not the least so that I could get to know you, too!

But alas, here we are; an Information Superhighway paved through our backyards.

So to address your question – what about me?

Is it even possible to meaningfully summarize ourselves by listing our interests and affiliations, opinions and accomplishments?

If you’re into that sort of thing, here’s how my Official Bio™ tends to read these days:

Mike Morrell is the collaborating author – with Richard Rohr – of the five-time best-seller The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. He’s co-founder of The Buzz Seminar, and a founding organizer of the national justice, arts, and spirituality gathering, The Wild Goose Festival.

Mike curates contemplative and community experiences via Relational Skills, and the ManKind Project, taking joy in holding space for the extraordinary transformation that can take place at the intersection of anticipation, imagination, and radical acceptance.

Mike earned his B.A. in Journalism, Creative Writing, and Religion from Berry College, has studied Strategic Foresight at the graduate level under Futurist Jay Gary, and is earning his Religion and Ecology certification from Yale’s Divinity School and School of Forestry, overseen by Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, and Brian Swimme.

Mike is also an avid writer, publishing consultant, author coach, futurist, and curator of the book-reviewing community at TheSpeakeasy.info. He lives with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. You can read Mike’s ongoing exploration of Spirit, Culture, and Permaculture – and receive updates on his gatherings and workshops – right here.

That almost sounds impressive, eh? As we say here in the South, “high-falutin’!”

But what if I told you that I’m also an ordained Dudeist Priest? Would that bring you a head scratch – or a laugh?

And then what if I then mentioned that, since my young 20s, I suffer with sometimes-debilitating anxiety? Would I be a lot more relatable all of the sudden?

Is any one of these aspects the ‘heart’ of me, or are they all mere aspects of the whole?

What are your fractal elements, stirred like shards of a stained-glass cathedral shimmering and reflecting the whole of the Sun?

Here are a few more of mine…

I’m a contemplative-in-process, seeking a more grounded experience of God, life, myself and the world: Not because of grand mystical aspiration, but in order to stay sane in the here and now.

I think my two girls are funny and brilliant – both my academically ‘gifted’ (as the school system names her aptitude) daughter and my Down syndrome daughter; they each teach me a ton.

I’m a lover of last resort, learning the art and craft of partnership day by day.

I’m adopted; a lifelong Southerner raised by West Virginian and a Connecticut Yankee in King (Jimmy) Carter’s court – Georgia. I’m also half-Turkish, a discovery I made a few years back upon reconnecting with biological family for the first time. And I’m Scotch-Irish. In other words, culturally and ethnically speaking, I’m just your average Italian-American Appalachian-City Dwelling Turk.

Spiritually speaking, I’m a recovering fundamentalist, having grown up in the SBC, A/G, and PCA. After being simultaneously enriched and befuddled by these aggregated acronyms, I spent a decade being shaped by (and shaping) intentional house church communities. Then 9/11 happened, and I was radicalized…in a Jesus-y sort of way, by Anabaptists, Quakers, and Anarchists. Then I became the Forrest Gump of the Emerging Church. These days I draw nourishment from all streams of the Christian family, as well as those of other faiths and none at all.

I blog what I live: finding myself in a place of spiritual simplexity – sinking roots deep into the compost of the seeming decay of our cherished ideas and institutions, drawing from an array of theologies, spiritualities, and praxes intersecting in the noosphere today, and watching where the unexpected shoots of new life spring forth. I find myself circling ’round to the primal of joy of all-encompassing inclusion in the divine dance of Abba, Isa, and Ruah – and the wordless Mystery that lies beneath.

So what’s the Big Idea of this blog?

My writing – and life – are organized around the intuition that we suffer a from a collective trauma as a species, its impact being a four-fold dis-integration, or alienation:

  • Alienation from God (or the Sacred)
  • Alienation from ourselves (as both inner beings and embodied creatures)
  • Alienation from each other
  • Alienation from our world (both our social worlds and the physical environment)

This existential ache of separation is the wound that all religion and spirituality is attempting to heal. The only problem is, our religious and spiritual paradigms were produced by the same mechanisms they seek to overcome – thus, they contain the poison as well as the antidote.

Clearly, substantial discernment is needed if we’re to discover the interventions that get us out of this story of separation and back into the felt-sense of re-union with God, self, others and world.

How do we mature as a species and recognize this four-fold re-union? Could (r)evolutionary Bible study, anthropology of our ancestral roots, ancient contemplative wisdom schools, depth psychology, and permaculture design principles have something crucial to offer in putting together this puzzle?

That’s what we’re exploring together – right here.

The best way to make sure you never miss a thing is to subscribe – I’m even giving away a substantial gift as a ‘thank you’ – an exclusive, original bonus chapter of my aforementioned book with Richard RohrThe Divine Dance.

Thank you again for stopping by. If you’re social – in the media sense – I’d love to connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

See you on the Interwebs,

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