Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/02/)
I can’t think of much personal advice that we hear more frequently than the idea of not taking things personally, and still, despite being told repeatedly and even being committed to it, we rarely know how to implement it. Why is it so difficult, and is there any clear practice that can help us get better at it?
We are almost always counting, Precious Lord. Teach us soon to count our blessings. We are in a terrible hurry. Put something in the way of our rushing about and let us trip over it, finding a new appreciation for interruptions. Amen
We pray, O God, for that thing called integrity, that exciting marriage between our inner and outer lives. Help us to pay attention to our own nourishment and what we put into our bodies, our arms and our hearts. Help us find energy, to know that health is not so much the absence or disease as the presence or vitality. Make us into inner-actives; people who move with grace from the inside out and the outside back again. Help us to be both morally nimble and morally solid. Let us not be afraid of our confusion but rather embrace it with the power of wisdom in you. Amen
Today Christians in Durham join sisters and brothers around the world to begin the season of penance that we call Lent. Pastors and priests call us to “remember you are dust and to the dust you shall return.” Recognizing that our sinful inclination is toward hubris, we dedicate forty days to the imitation of Christ’s humility through the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
But this year, Christians in Durham face a challenge: we cannot give to the beggar on our city’s streets because panhandling has been outlawed in Durham.
The city’s southwestern quadrant hasn’t always been so affluent. In the second decade of the 21st century it is a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. And, it’s not the kind of gentrification most people associate with the word. There are no artists moving into historic lofts or struggling young professionals buying up the small older homes to rehab them. Southwest Decatur – rebranded Oakhurst in 1979 – is a place where 1,000-square-foot homes are knocked down in a day and sent to local landfills. They are replaced by homes two or three times larger than the teardowns sporting an array of architectural finishes from oversized Craftsman details to faux Prairie.
The dead help us get clear, clear enough to live beyond the sting. While haunting us, they also fertilize us to unsentimental appreciation for life and breath. We get unstung and we almost never know how. We know the process of release from pain and marvel at why it took so much death to get changes in gun laws or a tad of release from racism. We muse on what a useful death can be in a world of such extensive uselessness.
February this year seems to be the month of revelations – not just heartfelt wows of love on Valentine’s Day, but something much more sinister and worrying. Four news reports with sometimes conflicting messages have been released this month from various sources, all discussing the perceived threat (or the lack thereof) of homegrown terrorism by Muslim Americans.
I saw “Zero Dark Thirty” a few weeks ago and then consumed the whole first season of “Homeland.” Don’t tell me what happens in season two. I love the suspense.
… I liked “Argo” but would have preferred “Lincoln” or “Les Misreables.” The latter has a score and presents themes of love and revolution that stir me every time….
Sunday’s New York Times features an important piece that will serve to alert progressives and Democrats to the latest brand of right-wing provocateur: young zealots who are not “movement” conservatives but who move from pro-Israel activism to the right at large. Although they ally themselves with more traditional right-wingers, their central concern is Israel, and not so much Israel per se as supporting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right. Although they stridently adopt traditional right-wing stands on the usual litmus issues, those are just window dressing. Their driving issue is Israel. The Times piece was occasioned by Goldfarb’s central role in promoting the line that Chuck Hagel is hostile to Israel.
Shout out, don’t hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. The U.S. empire is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today!