Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/emancipatory-spirituality/page/35/)
Why the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) is wrong in opposing the construction two blocks from Ground Zero of the Cordoba House (also known as Park 51), which the planners imagine as hosting a range of activities similar to those offered at the 92nd Street Y and would include a Mosque at which Muslims could worship.
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.
The psalms, that body of biblical literature so beautiful and passionate, so full of longing, are often rejected by those committed to progressive politics. Here, though, I would like to encourage those of us interested in changing the world and transforming ourselves to turn to them again and take another look.
A world of chaos stands before us, all the time that we have not yet reached the “tikkun elyon”—the highest level of healing, repairing, transforming—by uniting all life forces and all their diverse tendencies. As long as each one exalts himself, claiming, I am sovereign, I and no other—there cannot be peace in our midst (Notebook 8:429).
I was sure that coming out as trans would end my employment by Yeshiva University, but after months when I was forbidden to set foot on campus, the unthinkable happened.
There is a psychosis that permeates many churches with regard to the presence and involvement of same-gender-loving (SGL) people, who have great love for God and for their church communities.
As a young Asian American boy living in a mainstream Philadelphia suburb, I experienced many events of discrimination and racism that I did not know how to handle in my little life
Same-sex desire and even sexual activity have been represented and discussed in Indian literature for two millennia, often in a nonjudgmental and even celebratory manner, but a new virulent form of modern homophobia developed in India during the colonial period.
In 2002 I began a long and lonely journey, daring to visit some of the darkest corners of the taboo that permeates the consciousness of that unlikely character: the gay or lesbian Muslim.
To many in my faith, I’m a walking contradiction. I’m a Southern-bred evangelical Christian pastor and a “gay ally” (as straight advocates for the gay community are so awkwardly called).
Every night since the attack on my home by right-wing Zionists, I’ve been saying a prayer of forgiveness for them. While the political meaning of that act, and of the demeaning of critics of Israel, will be explored more fully in the July/August issue of Tikkun, on the spiritual level it is very important to not let negativity, even terrorism or violence, get the upper hand by bringing us down to the same level of anger or hatred that motivates those who act violently or those who demean and attempt to delegitimate the critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. If we are to build a world of love, we have to constantly work against the impulse to respond to anger and hatred with our own angry or hateful response. So, every night, I work on forgiving those who have assaulted my home, those who publicly demean me or Tikkun or the NSP, and those who spread hatred against the many people in our world who legitimately critique the policies of the State of Israel toward Palestinians. It was in this context that I thought I’d post some notes taken by therapist Linda Graham at a recent weekend retreat on forgiveness conducted by Jack Kornfield and Fred Luskin.
Traditional Buddhism is a spiritual path for individuals, not a platform for social change — yet is it always clear where one ends and the other begins?
. . . it relies on the idea of providing temporary worker visas to lower-skilled immigrants who are apparently expected to send their money home, providing American farmers, agribusiness, and other employers with a source of cheap labor that can depress the wages of other laborers.
From Peter Rollins on ways in which he denies the resurrection … and so do we all.
The future of God depends on the future of secularism. Most people will hear in that sentiment a prediction about the growth of secularism: If secularism grows, belief in God will commensurately shrink. If secularism stagnates, the world will continue to believe in God in 2100.