Challenge Your Self

Ever meet someone and you can tell that they only read/watch/listen to what they already think/believe/feel?

Like when people only listen to NPR.  Or only Conservative Talk Radio?  Or only FOX?  Or only religious books?  Or only irreligious ones?

Diversity not only helps you understand perspectives different than your own, it can help you see your own perspectives from a whole new light.  Sometimes we learn things that move us to abandon what we thought we knew.  Sometimes all that happens all at the same time.

No matter the destination, it happens when we challenge ourselves.  When we allow ourselves to be exposed to views that are different and perhaps even hostile to our own.

There are a million ways to do this.  But let me offer one:

Two books I enjoyed reading.  Both showed me aspects of my life, my spirituality, that I haven't thought of before.  One is an affirmation of the concept of spirituality, the other is an honest and passionate criticism of it.

Reason Driven Life is a point-by-point counter argument to Rick Warren's evangelical best seller The Purpose Driven Life.  It is smart, dry and frank enough to make religious conservatives very uncomfortable.  

Soul Cravings is a kind of spiritual anthropology that dives into our longings and how those longings point to God.  It is also smart, personal and evocative enough to make any honest skeptic perhaps a little more curious.

Being uncomfortable.  Being more curious.  Not such bad places to be, no?

So whaddaya say?  Challenge Your Self.