C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

     When I started this blog several years ago, it was with the intention of making it an “integral” blog – hence the name “Integral Strength”.  At the time, I was quite enamored with Eastern philosophy – Buddhism in particular, having practiced strains of both Theravada and Zen for some time – and so I thought it would be a great way to combine my love of lifting weights and philosophy, not to mention martial arts – a passion of mine that has existed since childhood – into one website.  Add into the fact that I was also reading quite a bit from the “integral” philosopher Ken Wilber at the time – some of my earliest posts that you can still find on here attest to this – and you can see why I thought that Integral Strength would be such a cool, not to mention accurate, name.  (Let me say this right off the bat, however: I don’t care much for Wilber or his philosophy any more.  I think it is, on the whole, quite reductionist, and actually has many of the problems that plague fundament

For a while now, I've been wanting to do a "best of" series where I post links to what I consider to be some of the best web posts/articles that you can find on the internet. Lately, I've been very busy writing articles, and so my posts here on my blog have taken a bit of a back seat to the rest of my writing. But since I've found time tonight to sit down and actually do something here, I thought it would be a good time to start this "best of" series. My first pick comes from Carl McColman's delightful mystical Christian blog Anamchara: The Website of Unknowing . The post is entitled "Christian Mysticism of the Future" and its my favorite of all of Carl's posts. (And he's written quite a lot.) By the way, after you've read this, be sure to check out the rest of his site. His last few blog posts alone are wonderful reading. Christian Mysticism of the Future One of my gripes with Phyllis Tickle’s book The Great Emergence is t

     First things first—before we get to the actual training for today—as you can probably tell, this will NOT  be your typical training journal (for the most part).  I will try to also include plenty of the psychological and the spiritual in my entries.  Hopefully, this will allow you to see—if not completely understand—how physical training (especially certain kinds of physical training) can become a true  mind-body-Spirit process. Training Entry #1: The One with the Colds and the Christ Presence Tuesday, December 15th, 2009      When I arrived home from work this afternoon, I absolutely—and in no friggin' way—felt good.  I had (and have as I write this) a cold.  My body ached—not too bad, but plenty enough to be annoying—and my throat was sore enough that it was hard to swallow.      I walked through the kitchen, dropped my keys and my wallet on the counter, then headed straight to the bedroom.  I took a 30 minute nap, but made sure I set the alarm on my phone so that I could ca