Healing Israel/Palestine

Muslims Condemn Yesterday's Attack on the Bus in Jerusalem.

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From the Jerusalem Post yesterday:
A woman was killed and 39 people were wounded on Wednesday afternoon when a bag exploded next to a bus stop across the street from the Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyanei Ha’uma), near the capital’s western entrance. It was the first serious terrorist bombing in the city since 2004, and for many residents it brought back terrible memories of the second intifada. We are grateful to have received this press release from our friends at the World Muslim Congress (and while we are about it, we include below their last week’s condemnation of the attack on Michael Lerner’s home):
Muslims condemn today’s attack on the Bus in Jerusalem. PRESS RELEASE
March 23, 2011, Dallas, Texas
Muslims condemn today’s attack on the Bus in Jerusalem. The world Muslim Congress strongly condemns the attack on the bus in Jerusalem as well as the resumption of the rocket attacks on the civilian population.

Judaism

Women and Menstruation in Torah

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One week after Jews all over the world nosh on Haman’s hat, dress in kooky costumes and party until we no longer recognize the difference between the ancient Persian equivalents of Hitler and Einstein, our preparation for Passover begins. On Shabbat Parah we study the enigmatic commandment to purify ourselves from contact with the dead through the sacrifice of a young, unblemished, red cow. In many ways, this reading seems to continue the comedic inversions and paradoxes of Purim, the Jewish Mardi Gras. But surprise and delight at our continued presence on earth gives way to thoughtful reflection on emancipation from slavery and the attendant new-found responsibility we incur as a nation of free citizens. Observance takes a serious turn.

Christianity

Christian Right calls Christian Left "A Rising Power"

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According to a recent post by the Family Research Council, “the Christian Left is a rising power in American politics, finding allies at all levels of government. Arguably, the movement played an important role in electing Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008.” In the following video, Dr. Mark Smith of Cedarville University gives a very interesting and informative (albeit long) lecture on the differences between the Christian Right and the Christian Left. At the end of the talk, Smith offers his own critique of the Christian Left’s call for government intervention to create a more socially just society:

1) Government-imposed social justice is unjust because plans for redistribution cannot distinguish between those who are rich or poor through oppression and those who deserve their status. According to Smith many poor people “deserve to be poor through their behavior” — as Proverbs puts it, through their “laziness,” “love of sleep,” “love of pleasure,” “love of food,” and “love of wine.”

Earth-based Religions

Spring…and Death: More Questions than Answers

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After a long, cold, and icy winter, it’s spring here in Boston. The light has changed, making the sky somehow lighter and further away; if you find a spot out of the wind you might actually feel some real warmth from the sun; and in my neighbor’s miniscule front garden a band of hardy crocuses (croci?) have adorned themselves with purple buds. The birds didn’t have to be told twice, and they are singing, tweeting, cawing, and flying around with new home building and speed dating on their minds. Spring is change, new life, excitement. Taking off the heavy leather, the bulky down, searching the ads for some new running shoes.

Buddhism

Enlightenment from a Sea Gull

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What is spiritual fulfillment? What is reaching the heights of spiritual development? Or, to use the classic term — what is enlightenment? Classical Buddhist sources describe it as a state of mind in which we no longer think: “I am this, this is mine, this is my self.” Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra defines it as the ability to control, and cease, the modifications of the mind.

Christianity

‘Of Gods and Men’: A film of enormous spiritual power

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A little-noted outgrowth of the current wave of popular upheaval sweeping the Arab world is that Algeria’s nearly 20 year rein of martial law has been lifted. Most of the 1990s were marked by a savage civil war that pitted a variety of Islamist insurgent groups against Algeria’s military regime and against each other. By the time it petered out early in the 2000’s, the massacre of whole villages, urban bombings, shootouts and assassinations had claimed 150,000 to 200,000 lives. Eventually, this conflict engulfed the French Cistercian Trappist monastery situated in a remote village, where its monks were much loved by their Muslim-Arab neighbors. They incorporated them into their everyday lives, even inviting them to family weddings and other life-cycle events.

Culture

The Sacredness and Beauty of Home Funerals

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By Elizabeth Clerico
Our society is in denial. Denial of death, which ultimately is a denial of life. When we refuse to embrace death, when we run away from it, we lose a most sacred and precious opportunity to feel life, to appreciate the life we have on this earth. I, like most people, was in that state of denial when my father was dying of cancer. I held onto hope when I knew in my gut there was none.

Culture

Pinkwashing, NYC Style: The LGBT Center Caves to Pressure

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Watching NYC’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center succumb to pressure to cancel a kick-off party for Israeli Apartheid Week, I feel compelled to write an epilogue to my recent post on Pinkwashing. I am reminded once again that we must be vigilant in refusing to allow queer liberation to be pitted against Palestinian liberation because as we know from our queer Palestinian colleagues, the two struggles are intertwined. On February 22nd, Michael Lucas, a right wing Advocate columnist and gay porn entrepreneur, issued a press release calling on the LGBT center to cancel the scheduled “Party to End Apartheid,” which he called anti-Semitic. He threatened to “organize a boycott that would certainly involve some of the Center’s most generous donors.” Infamous for his attacks against Islam, Lucas argued that “Israel is the only country in the Middle East that supports gay rights while its enemies round up, torture, and condemn gay people to death…”