Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/emancipatory-spirituality/page/9/)
The myth of Sisyphus may imply that the best that we humans can expect is that, when tired from endlessly rolling the rock back up the hill, we may gather together at the River Jordan and weep. I wish Peter were right, but I still doubt that it is possible to overcome the otherness of the Other, except briefly, randomly, undependably.
Letting go of self-centered and anthropocentric thinking—“we are the only images of God”—will help us reconnect to our authentic mystical roots as lovers of all beings.
Racism is the demeaning of an entire group of people and refusal to see them as fully human in the way we see ourselves and those we deem to be “like” us. When we fail to see the humanity of the “other,” we ascribe to them ugly characteristics that somehow justify treating them with less honor and less generosity than we would others who are part of the groups we do see as fundamentally like us. From this place of separation we justify denying the “other” equal rights, benefits, and caring that all human beings deserve. Racism in the United States has a long history. It was foundational to U.S. expansion throughout the North American continent, allowing white people to justify to themselves genocidal policies toward Native Americans, to allow slavery, and to incorporate into our Constitution a provision that would count African slaves as three-fifths of a human being so that Southern States would have higher representation in the Congress, though racists both North and South didn’t think of them as human beings at all.
Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age
James Carroll
Viking, 2014
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
HarperOne, 2014
James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword unveiled to many Christians the sordid way that Christian institutions transformed Jesus’s message of liberation into a doctrine to support imperial domination and the persecution of Jews. In this newer book, Carroll attempts to reclaim the prophetic voice of Jesus that is rooted in Jewish messianism: “Recovering that sense of Christian Jewishness, like recovering the Jewishness of Jesus, defines the essential work that Christians must do in a post-Auschwitz world.” Throughout this powerful and insightful presentation of the ways a Christian can be “faithful to the classical tradition of Christian faith while simultaneously limiting assertion about (Jesus) to a modern—or postmodern—mind,” Carroll reads Christian texts from a contemporary perspective, in light of the distortions that led to the destructive misuse of these texts in the past. Contemporary Christians can take special pride in the work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the outspoken Christian activist whose challenge to apartheid won him the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu became the chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which sought to lead his country beyond the pain and anger that had festered under racist oppression. This beautiful and insightful book should be part of the school curriculum in every country of the world.
There is much for Jews and people of other faith traditions to admire in Christian spiritual consciousness, once we get past the justifiable pain of how the official versions of Christianity treated us in the past. With Pope Francis embracing the kind of Christianity that is so deeply rooted in the liberation traditions of Judaism, it becomes much easier for Jews to open themselves to listening respectfully and with an open heart to Christian spiritual wisdom. Here are some examples of that spiritual wisdom
The Gift of Holy Surprise: Pilgrimage of Resurrection through Creative Practice (a love note)
Christine | May 24, 2015
This is the eighth in a series of eight reflections over the season of Easter on making a pilgrimage of resurrection. Word for Today: Spirit
‘What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as “play” is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously.
To create a present and a future which is Earth-honoring and just to all marginalized and outcast beings, those of us who identify as Hindus must act as wise and determined servants in re-discovering the ecologically-sound wisdom embedded in our collective human history and experience.
Jesus was a Jew, so Jesus’s Bible was the Hebrew Bible. Churchgoers are missing out if they never encounter more than the Psalms.
“Stewardship” is a tired old idea. Let’s stop talking about duty and start talking about the sacredness of creation! The light of Christ is in all beings.
The dharmic concept of ahimsa (“not to injure”) demands that we take personal and political action to protect the environment.
The Qur’an instructs us to live lightly on this earth. From Zanzibar to Indonesia, Islamic ethics are guiding new conservation efforts.
Bodhisattvas commit daily to an impossible task: the liberation of all living beings. What can climate activists learn from their active nonattachment?
Climate prayer is powerful. Here’s how synagogues can breathe earth awareness into services and activists can make their actions prayerful.
The things we will need to change to keep the earth safe are the very things closest to us, dearest to us, and most rooted in our traditions.
The environmental movement is too fragmented. It’s time to integrate our struggles and recognize the spiritual dimension of our political work.
We can replace the ethos of endless growth and conspicuous consumption with an approach to nature based on awe and wonder at the preciousness of the earth, love of all beings, and celebration of life.