Culture

A Conspiracy of Love

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Beautiful article in our local paper about Dean Ornish (at right with his family), “the nation’s pre-eminent proponent of adopting a healthy life to reverse chronic diseases.” Since founding the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in 1984, he has run trial after trial looking at whether lifestyle choices involving diet, exercise, meditation – and even love – can be as powerful in treating disease as drugs, radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. “In my 33 years, in everything we did, people thought we were crazy,” said Ornish, a self-described hugger who exudes a doctor’s natural air of concern. “People said the tests must be wrong or that this could only happen in California. But we have proven that lifestyle is treatment, not just prevention.”

Rethinking Religion

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from poet Mark Siet:
And yet still through these hands do we mold
Our lives of caring from young until old. Nothing else matters but the Creator in every breath
What else could compare to this sublime holiness
Knowing that with each step there is only One
In the rising of the moon and the setting of the sun. There in that place where nothing may be perceived
A curious fashion comes into being whereupon received
The threads of Torah’s living letters the vine upon the Tree
Weave these pesukim flowing through Tzimtzum to the sea
Joining the waters above with those that are below
With every meaning shared light there does show
For after all this is the very purpose of divine connection
To reveal in each moment by our infinite reflection.

Culture

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. This year that kind of celebration is particularly difficult when many of us are in mourning because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives believe that avoiding July 4 or turning it into nothing more than a picnic with friends is a mistake for progressives. There is much worth celebrating in American history that deserves attention on July 4th, despite the current depravity of those who lead this country, though the celebration-worthy aspects of our society are rarely the focus of the public events. We also acknowledge that in the twenty-first century there is a pressing need to develop a new kind of consciousness — a recognition of the interdependence of everyone on the planet.

Christianity

Sinners United for Justice

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Someone asked me recently why I have gravitated toward the church as a context for justice work. Is there something different, he asked, about doing social change work from a Christian perspective, or is it just convenient to work within a body of people who are already assembled? It’s a good question, and it’s one that both the Christian lectionary of recent weeks and my life have been speaking to in surprising and disorienting ways. As some of you know, I spent the first week of June at Duke Divinity School, taking part in a Christian summer institute on reconciliation. It started on a Monday night, and we began, appropriately enough, in a garden.

Politics & Society

Tikkun at the Social Forum: Video

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Free Speech TV interviewed me at the Social Forum. They are on cable and increasingly web-based. I can’t work out how to find all their Social Forum coverage on their website: maybe one of you can work that out. I think I’ve only been on TV about three times in my life and I find myself too embarrassed to watch this, but am told it is watchable. freespeechtv on livestream.com.

Christianity

Are the New Atheists Wrong to Suggest Religious Moderates Justify the Extremes?

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I want your opinion about something. I’m a liberal religious person who doesn’t believe in doctrines, dogma or a supernatural God. 19% of members in my tradition identify as atheist, 30% as agnostic and the rest Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Pagan or otherwise. Many of us have been wounded by the bigotry, homophobia and dogma in the religions we grew up in and find refuge, support and community in my tradition. We come together on Sunday mornings to enjoy music and hear sermons about social justice, the power of community and how to live inspiring and meaningful lives.

Empathy

Trust — a Fair Default Mode for Our Relationships?

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Tariq Ramadan is one of the most visible Muslims in Europe. Charismatic, loved, hated, feared. A source of inspiration for many young European Muslims, a reference; suspected and accused of double talk by many non-Muslims.
I consider him a friend; I wrote a review for Tikkun, defending him against Caroline Fourest’s book attacking him. At a conference that I helped to organize, Ramadan was coming to speak. There were also two Muslim imam friends present, and I asked each in private what they honestly thought of him.

Earth-based Religions

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom was sent to us by a member of the Faith and Spirituality group with which Tikkun is working to plan many workshops, a service, and a sacred space at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, June 22-26. The member, Louisa Davis, suggested this poem as a blessing for the social change work taking place at the forum:

Another World is Possible
[br]
by Rose Flint
[br]
We can dream it in, with our eyes
Open to this Beauty, to all
That Earth gives each of us, each day
Those miracles of dark and light–
Rainlight, dawn, sun moon, snow, storm grey
And the wide fields of night always
Somewhere opening their flower
stars – this, this! Another world is
[br]
possible. With river and bird
Sweet and free without fear, without
minds blind to harmony, to how
We can hold. We have been too long
Spoiled greedy children of Earth, life of rocks and creatures
Slipping out of our careless hands.

Christianity

God Doesn't Play Favorites: A Religious Person Rethinks Prayer

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Crossposted from Common Sense Religion
God does not answer prayer. There, I’ve said it. I know for some my assertion is scandalous, while for others it is mere common sense. But before you summon the inquisitor to prepare the rack or brand me a heretic or rush to my defense, hear me out. I used to believe that God answered prayer.