These religious beliefs and practices form a single stream of tradition.
Even if they rebel against it and transform it entirely, they still belong to a stream of tradition.
The whole of cultural life is shaped from within the particular stream of tradition that comes from collective historical experience shared only by members of the group.
In the long view, the greatest educational and philosophical influence of the age was St. Thomas Aquinas, who in the 13th century made a monumental attempt to reconcile the two great streams of the Western tradition.
An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz, and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as Astral Weeks and lesser-known works such as Veedon Fleece and Common One.
According to Christian theology and the deepest streams of the Judeo-Christian traditions, there is nothing that is more the pope's business (and, indeed, the business of all Christians) than the stewardship of God's creation and our theological and spiritual reflection and proclamation regarding God's creation.
He rides rafts over crowds, douses himself and the front rows with uncontrollable streams of bubbly, and, in a tradition never really fully explained in the doc (and therefore entirely lost on me), throws numerous sheet cakes at the audience.
Call it stream-of-consciousness shopping.
This stream of the Christian tradition insists that it is idolatry to trust in guns to make us secure, since that usually leads to mutual escalation while distracting us from the One whose love alone gives us security.
Companies are intent on peddling a constant stream of new products and services but, perversely, the concept of tradition still drives the business.
