National reforms are not enough. To end the fear and heartbreak of the current system will require the implementation of a Global Marshall Plan and a basic challenge to our notions of land ownership and the nation-state.
2013
Spirituality in a Broken World
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Larry Rasmussen reviews Spirituality: What It Is and Why It Matters by Roger S. Gottlieb.
2013
An Evangelical Perspective on Immigration
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Inspired by Scripture and struggling to serve immigrant worshippers, the evangelical community is calling for reforms to keep families together and establish a path toward citizenship for people without papers.
Articles
A Religion of Compassion: A Letter to Pope Francis
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The Catholic Church has become “irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid,” to use the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. In his letter to the new pope, Matthew Fox argues that religion needs to return to its roots—as compassionate, loving, spiritual, and accepting of all people—to regain its relevance.
2013
Love the Stranger: Looking to the Torah for Guidance on Immigration Policy
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We are all capable of prejudice and must remain vigilant to observe and change it within ourselves. Perhaps that’s why the most repeated commandment in the Torah is to love the stranger.
2013
Creating Sanctuary: Faith-Based Activism for Migrant Justice
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When would-be migrants die in the desert, it’s not just an ethical issue, it’s also a religious crisis. Arizona groups have put their faith into action for decades, defying federal law and offering humanitarian aid.
Articles
How to Stand in Solidarity with African Americans This Weekend
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I’m writing to YOU to urge you to either come with me on Sunday or go to a nearer African American church this Sunday and let the African American community in your neighborhood or town know that they are not alone, that we understand their fear and stand in solidarity with them. No matter where you came out on the Zimmerman trial, you can still stand in solidarity with African Americans, support them in their grief, and signal to them that they are not alone.
2013
A Psychoanalytic Guide to Kabbalah
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Psychoanalysis and Kabbalah have a lot in common, not the least their ability to profoundly alter our mind-states and influence our actions. In his modern Guide for the Perplexed, renowned psychologist Michael Eigen breaks down the connections between psychoanalysis and Kabbalah, and how they might be used together for our benefit.
Activism
Old Roots, New Branches: Jewish Spiritual Communities and the Rise of Alt-Labor
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In both the independent Jewish communities and the alt-labor groups, newcomers are more comfortable with the languages of faith and justice than their predecessors.
Activism
An Interdependence Day Celebration for July 4
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Faced with July 4th celebrations that are focused on militarism, ultra-nationalism, and “bombs bursting in air,” many American families who do not share those values turn July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports, and fireworks, while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast.
About Tikkun
Songs for July 4 from the Network of Spiritual Progressives
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Here are some lyrics and chords for songs that would go well with a July 4 Interdependence Day celebration!
Articles
Anti-Muslim Fervor in the Wake of the Boston Marathon Bombings
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More than a month has passed since two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, but the fear and anti-Muslim fervor generated by the attack continues to ripple through the United States.
Editorials & Actions
Being the Love You Seek by Kenneth L. Meyer
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A Poem by Spiritual Progressive Kenneth L. Meyer
www.drkenmeyer.com
A personal reflection on life’s purpose:
To cultivate the courage and willingness
necessary to live fully,
embodied in our fragile human form,
to be fully forgiven and forgiving,
non-defensive and open hearted,
and reciprocally empathic in relation to all that is. This is the ordinariness of a divine dimension
from which we all emerge. The very love we were born to express as humans,
from within and without,
from bones to heart to spirit,
and as soul to soul,
journeying and returning to and fro,
from earth dust to stardust
— all seeming to occur in a lived space-time
of a perceived universe. There is no real time or absolute space. There is only Love.
Articles
Toward a New Buddhist Story
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Is a new Buddhist story beginning to develop out of the interaction between Buddhism and the modern world? Both need such a new story.
Articles
Therapist from the Depths: A Conversation with Michael Eigen
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Michael Eigen isn’t only one of the leading and most important psychoanalysts in the world, but also a poet of strong-expression who plays the piano, wanders in the forest, and seeks holiness through Chasidic studies and Kabbalah. I had a conversation with Eigen, the Jewish kid who became one of Wilfred Bion’s greatest students (“thanks to him I decided to get married”), on the occasion of the publishing of his book Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis. At that time he told me:
When I was a little boy I remember seeing a tree. Half of it was withered and dead and the other half was blooming. Then I realized that one could be dead and very much alive, concurrently. We are not monolithic, and can experience vitality and life on certain levels and on others total deadness.