Fred Castor's blog

Over the last few years I have written in this space most of what I know about spirituality. Unlike theology which is literally a study about God and can go on and on investigating and developing theories and different ways of understanding the host of things surrounding the nature of God, spirituality is quite simple. That is why its practice crosses all religious, ethnic and social boundaries.

How trustworthy are God’s promises? If this question were to be directed to you, and now it is, what would your answer be? Probably most people who read this would respond with: ‘completely’ or ‘totally’. We do believe God to be trustworthy.

Suppose the question were reframed to ask: “How ‘completely’ do you trust yourself to God, letting yourself go into God’s care and direction?” Your answer to that might be quite different. Perhaps the answer would then be: ‘somewhat’ ‘partially’ ‘sometimes’ or ‘not enough’.

One of our well read council members, Don Imsland, lent me his copy of Harvey Cox’s recent book, THE FUTURE OF FAITH. Cox, a former Harvard theologian, has been an invaluable interpretive voice on the American religious scene for decades.

In this new book he astutely divides the history of Christianity into three periods: The Age of Faith, the Age of Belief and the Age of the Spirit.

 Recently I was asked by the Library Committee of OSLC, currently restructuring our church library, to make suggestions of books on ‘spirituality’ to be acquired. I went to my own library where I have numbers of books on the subject and began deciding what books I could suggest and contribute.

As incredible as it might seem at this time, I was a lifeguard at the Mulberry City pool here in Fort Collins
for 5 years after I retired from Campus Ministry at CSU. I had been swimming there for some years
when the manager asked me if I would be interested in guarding during the day for one day a week. I
became certified and had a wonderful experience.
One technique that is used in life saving is to approach a person in distress from the rear and out of

Almost every Sunday we publicly proclaim in our Creed that we believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Of these three persons of the Holy Trinity we tend to overlook the work of the Holy Spirit, which is most unfortunate. The function of the Holy Spirit is paramount in our faith experience.

How we long for peace – peace in our lives – peace in our homes – peace in our church – peace in our
country - peace in our world.
The late Dr. Joseph Sittler, one of our Lutheran Church’s renowned theologians, writes of two dimensions
of peace. On the one hand peace is a most desirable personal state of well-being. It is ‘rest’ from the turmoil
of personal living in a turbulent society and conflicted world. In this sense ‘peace’ is a gift from God