Realistic Living means openness to Reality with a capital R - to the Mystery, Depth, and Greatness of our being. Realistic Living means openness to inherent innovative initiative. And Realistic Living means openness to the lives of others and to the transformation of the social patterns that sustain us all.

As a nonprofit organization, Realistic Living is focused on enabling fresh communities of Christian nurture, recovering the personal meaning of the great words of Christian heritage: God, faith, love, freedom, sin, grace, Holy Spirit, cross, resurrection, Christ.

To hear about our approach to this recovery, click the triangular button below and listen to a brief radio interview with Gene Marshall conducted by Lynn Carlson, a pastor in Bloomington, Indiana.

Receive a complimentary copy of the most recent Journal

If you are open to profound religious renewal, Christian or otherwise, you need these two books by Gene W. Marshall in your library:

The 2003 Classic

The Call of the Awe
Rediscovering Christian Profundity in an Interreligious Era

The experience of Awe is explored as the key to both understanding Christian heritage and conducting fruitful interreligious dialogue. Even if we are not fully aware of it, each of us lives in a land of mystery with rushing rivers of freedom, imposing mountains of care, and wild seas of tranquility. This land of mystery penetrates the land of ordinary living at every point. Awe is our experience of this ever-present Eternity. This book is for all inquirers into the depths of being human.

The 2009 sequel

Jacob’s Dream
A Christian Inquiry into
Spirit Realization

This book is about coming home to Reality as movement from identification with our personality habits to identification with our essential Spirit nature of Trust, Love, and Freedom. The enneagram analysis of personalities is used to assist us in our Spirit journey.  Also described is the role that community plays in the Christian nurture of our solitary journey.  We recommend Jacob’s Dream as both a devotional book for solitary time and a study book for small group life.

Trade Paperback – published by
iUniverse - Jan 2003
ISBN: 0-595-26353-4
Size: 6 x 9 - 334 Pages
Price: $20.95
iUniverse.com or call 1-877-823-9235

Or mail a check for $20.00 to
Gene W. Marshall
3578 N. State Highway 78
Bonham, TX 75418
and we will pay the postage.

For further information and reviews of The Call of the Awe, click here.

Trade Paperback – published by
iUniverse - March 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4401-1355-0
Size: 6 x 9 - 308 Pages
Price: $21.95
iUniverse.com or call 1-877-823-9235

Or mail a check for $21.00 to
Gene W. Marshall
3578 N. State Highway 78
Bonham, TX 75418
and we will pay the postage.

For further information on Jacob's Dream, click here.

Gene Marshall has a long history of participation in Christian renewal and interreligious dialogue. In 1952 he made a decision to leave a mathematics career and attend seminary at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. In 1962 he joined a religious order of families, the Order:Ecumenical, and became a teacher and lecturer of Spirit topics, traveling across the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia. These trips included a study of world cultures and religions and efforts to witness to the Christian breakthrough in the medium of these various cultures. In 1983 he began publishing books and essays.

Joyce Marshall did her university training in music and education with a deep passion for literature and feminine values. She is an avid reader of fiction and nonfiction books, and she reviews the best of them for the Realistic Living Journal that she and Gene publish semiannually. With Gene, she has been teaching theology and religious methods since 1974, as well as attending numerous religious workshops and retreats. She is one of the few living teachers of an innovative drama method called EcoTheater. She uses her drama and musical skills to lead a theater troupe in local performances.

Alan Richard has 20 years of experience as an activist and community organizer, 15 years of experience as a published behavioral health researcher, and 10 years of experience managing large behavioral health programs.  He holds a doctorate in Religion from Syracuse University, has designed and taught courses in religion for lay people on topics such as existential Christianity and new monasticisms, and founded a Christian Resurgence Circle “house church” in Houston, Texas.  He is a contributor to the Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory and continues to participate actively in academic and lay conferences on theology and ethics.  He joined the staff of Realistic Living in 2010.