About

We are committed to sharing a faith that makes sense for ourselves and for other people where we find ourselves in life.  Sometimes those are difficult places fraught with questions and uncertainty.  Other times, we revel in how we see and feel God in the joyous moments of our lives.  We want to talk about faith outside of the academy where only a select number can take our classes.  And we want to talk about faith outside of local congregations where ideas are often bogged down with the insider jargon of specific faiths.  We just want to keep it real.

This site isn’t for those who have it all figured out (but if you do, please let us know on the contact page!).  It’s for the rest of us:

faith for those who question God
where yelling at God is an act of faith
swapping faith stories over coffee and the day’s news
developing spiritual practices for a regular busy life

Real Spirituality for Real Life represents faith in process.  Originally founded as Process & Faith, we go by the expression “Real Spirituality for Real Life,” because we believe that is exactly what a process-relational worldview offers – real ways of living out our faith in the world in which we live

• We believe the world is relational and interdependent, that God is present in every moment of experience, and that our choices really do make a difference.
• We are Protestants, Catholics, Unitarians, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims who have discovered that process-relational theology makes sense. It encourages us to deepen our particular faith while reaching out with respect to other faiths for inter-religious dialogue and shared ministries.
• We are pastors and lay people, students and teachers, scientists, businesspeople, homemakers, parents, seekers and adventurers . . .
• As an organization, we are dedicated to providing practical applications of process-relational theology to all aspects of faith life: spirituality, education, preaching and worship, biblical interpretation, counseling, and ministries of justice.
• Real Spirituality for Real Life/ Process & Faith is a program of the Center for Process Studies, a faculty center of the Claremont School of Theology.

Here are 8 points of process thought – written by Advisory Board member, Jay McDaniel:

• Everything is in process; reality is flowing; nothing ever stays the same.
• All things are interconnected; no human is an island; things are present in one another even as they have their autonomy.
• The whole of nature has value; all live beings deserve respect; human beings are not the sole repository of value.
• Human beings find happiness in sharing experiences with others; there are no isolated egos; all selves are selves-in-relation; humans become whole through reciprocity.
• The essence of the universe is a continuous creativity of which all things are expressions; there is creativity in plants and animals, hills and rivers, trees and stars.
• All beings seek harmony as their guiding ideal; harmony includes differences; the whole of the universe is a harmony of harmonies.
• Thinking and emotion cannot be sharply separated; mind and body are not two; even thinking is a form of feeling; aesthetic wisdom and rational inquiry are complementary.
• Every moment of human experience begins, not with projecting things onto the world or even acting in the world, but with feeling the presence of the world and being affected by it.