Making Footprints Not Blueprints Podcast Artwork Image

Making Footprints Not Blueprints

Andrew James Brown/Caute

Welcome to “Making Footprints not Blueprints”, a regular podcast about matters philosophical and religious. My name is Andrew James Brown and, despite being an atheistically inclined free-thinker, I’m also the minister to the Unitarian Church in the city of Cambridge, UK.The title of this podcast is borrowed from the philosopher Herbert Fingarette (1921-2018) who, in his book, “The Self in Transformation” (Basic Books, New York 1963), offered us studies that were “outcomes rather than realised objectives” which were offered to the reader as an encouragement to make “intellectual footprints, not blueprints.” This podcast tries to proceed in a similar fashion and takes seriously an insight of the poet A. R. Ammons who felt that true human freedom only comes when we have understood that full scope always eludes our grasp, that there is no finality of vision, that we have perceived nothing completely and that, therefore, and thankfully, tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.
Episodes
S05 - Bonus Episode - A community standing, perhaps, on the cusp of becoming “freethinking mystics with hands” - Final Episode of Season 5March 29, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #27 - What happens (to Easter) when we can no longer rely on spring? - A thought for the dayMarch 24, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #26 - There is only mother love all the way down—Mothering Sunday - A thought for the dayMarch 18, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #25 - Spiritual Values and Negative Capability - A thought for the dayMarch 11, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #24 - Pragmatism is true, but doesn’t work—a lesson for liberal, free religion to learn - A thought for the dayMarch 03, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #23 - The End and the Beginning—On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - A thought for the dayFebruary 25, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #22 - Living lovingly in hypernormal times - A thought for the dayFebruary 18, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #21 - What Mary Oliver’s black bear can tell us about the earthquake in Turkey and Syria - A thought for the dayFebruary 11, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #20 - Where is the life in the place in which others are putting us?—A call confidently to express a Free Religion - A thought for the dayFebruary 04, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #19 - Complete spiritual freedom is the great action that follows the clearing of decks - A thought for the day on the meaning and lessons of Unitarian history January 28, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #18 - Liberal, free religion—Catching moving trains or metaphysical hitchhiking? - A thought for the dayJanuary 20, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #17 - Recovering the courage to do the “vision thing”—a pressing issue facing all modern, liberal, free religious communities - A thought for the dayJanuary 14, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #16 - The epiphany of there being no “Epiphany” - A thought for the dayJanuary 09, 2023
Episode artwork
S05 #15 - The human solidarity brought by the grace of being cold together—A meditation for New Year’s Day 2023December 31, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #14 - What the doubtful centipede can teach a liberal, free religion - A thought for the dayDecember 30, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #13 - “The Eternal Buddha is no one else but the Eternal Christ.” Imaoka sensei’s “Three Christs”—A Christmas Day meditationDecember 24, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 Bonus Episode - A hidden, Hidden Christian, Christmas—An Advent meditationDecember 15, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 Bonus Episode - Christianity is basically an epic mistake . . . and the time is right to correct itDecember 15, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #12 - Catching sight of the “world bud”—An Advent meditation - A thought for the dayDecember 10, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #11 - It’s such a surprise because it’s just the beginning—an Advent meditation - A thought for the dayNovember 26, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #10 - Seek simplicity and distrust it - A thought for the dayNovember 18, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #09 - A nascent form of integral, liberal, free religious worship - A thought for the dayNovember 05, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #08 - A free religion radiant with a humanising light that the darkness will never overcome - A thought for the dayOctober 28, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #07 - Creating a liberal, free religion appropriate for the possible incoming sea of faith - A thought for the dayOctober 21, 2022
Episode artwork
S05 #06 - Tiny seeds and tiny words of love, freedom and justice. Scatter them. — Resisting the neoliberal onslaught - A thought for the dayOctober 08, 2022
Episode artwork