As the executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP), members often tell me they can imagine what a better world would look like – one that judges the efficacy and rationality of our institutions, not on how much profit they earn, but that they treat living creatures and the earth with the dignity and respect that we all deserve. Yet, many folks feel disheartened that this notion is not often discussed in popular media or that there isn’t a successful political party championing our shared values. These individuals have turned to the NSP because they want to be a part of a movement that holds that realizing this world is not simply naïve idealism, but, in fact, is realistic if we work towards making it so.As with any movement, it’s important to glean wisdom and turn to those who are leaders in their own right for inspiration. The speakers in this series offered a profound sense of hope as well as real-world steps for action, which deeply resonated with the summit’s attendees. One of the participants told me that the calls had instilled in her a sense of inspiration and excitement she had not felt for years and did not expect to feel again.
Some of the highlights included hearing Marianne Williamson discuss the importance of integrating one’s own spiritual work with efforts to change the world. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda passionately argued that love as a biblical norm shakes the foundation of injustice and oppression. Other conversations included inspiring ideas about love and justice in Israel and Palestine, in the legal system, in the economic system and in building a movement itself.To learn more about the calls and see whom we spoke with, click here.
If you are a paid member of the Network of Spiritual Progressive, you can download the recordings for free and listen at your leisure. To become a member, click here and then email us for your download link.
The Passionate Citizen Intensive: Marrying Spirituality and Activism to Build a World Based on a New Bottom Line
I’m also excited to announce an upcoming 10 week training series taught by Rabbi Lerner and me. To learn more, you can listen to this introductory conversation with us about how to channel your passion into effective action for systemic change, reclaim your idealism, communicate with others to ignite their deeper hunger for meaning beyond economics and self-interest, and promote a worldview that reaches across differences and inspires others.
We also share on this call how to participate in our upcoming LIVE training – the Passionate Citizen Intensive.In this 10-week transformational program, Rabbi Lerner and I will guide you through the fundamental skills and competencies for sustainable and passionate social change so that you can make powerful internal shifts that allow you to effectively shift our societal structures for the well-being of the planet.
By focusing our attention each week on prevalent social crises that are gripping our country and the world – we’ll better understand how a spiritually progressive social change approach can move us beyond gridlock, inspire compassion, and generate creative problem solving. Course sessions are on Tuesdays at 5:00pm PT starting on June 16th. To learn more about this upcoming series of 10 trainings click here. And, if you want to receive $50 off the price of the training, join the NSP now (here) and then email us at leila@tikkun.org to receive the link to register for the course with the discount.
I know that you recognize that living in a sacred and meaningful way means having a positive impact on the pressing issues humanity faces. I also know deciding where to put your energies and how to get involved can feel overwhelming. We hope you will join us for the call and the training.
I continue to be amazed at how those who gain social popularity as spiritual leaders are seen as providers of guidance for the common person who does not aspire to be a celebrity guru on the speakers’ circuit and in the media but simply wants to arrange for his or her life to be significantly helpful to others. There are many who have learned to be humble and not declare themselves worthy of public attention. Instead they dare to believe that voluntarily coming alongside someone (often a far or nearby neighbor previously unnoticed and unmet, sometimes called a “stranger” who has been avoided by habits and routines) in their own communities to offer a friendship to overcome loneliness and despair and to help as one can makes the difference the “other” person truly desires to experience.
One-on-one, cross-cultural helpfulness that bridges perceptions of differences is not glamorous. It garners no publicity because that’s not its purpose. In fact, the person befriended and helped may not even want to be noticed publicly and may instead simply appreciate a private, quiet friendship through and within which the grace and wisdom of God is shared gently, with mutual appreciation, between two souls.
The model for such divine one-on-one intervention by God in the lives of individuals who become friends has been shown but is rarely publicized because it fails to measure up to the ego’s criteria of prideful social approval and notoriety. Yet, throughout history there are have been examples we might follow if we choose to be that humble and not seek the limelight. The light of God’s gentle grace, mercy and justice shines when two or more are gathered in the nature of Divine Love as if there is no other purpose to life than to share Divine Love. Micah 6:8 teaches us what the Source of Divine Love requires of each of us in order to serve as a conduit of Divine Love, doing justice and loving mercy. Humility. No ego-trumpeting but humility.
Walking humbly with our God, perhaps even when no one else notices except the person into whose eyes we look deeply to see him or her and affirm his or her immense value to God. Walking as Jesus (or Buddha) did, for example, if one considers oneself a believer in Jesus (or Buddha). How much publicity did Jesus or Buddha seek for himself? How large was the community he served directly by being present in it? How many lives did he interact with one-on-one to make the difference that faith in an intimately available Source of Divine Love (whom Jesus dared to call Abba) can make?
Personal, down and close to the earth where humble people travel but the media hype ignores. Common folk. Do we count or do only those who gather in national and international conferences and pay large prices for travel, lodging, food and speakers fees count? Why is the NSP so convinced that superstars who seek the limelight have all the answers, as if NSP is modeled after the NBA and seeks to emulate the Michael Jordans of the world as their role models? Does anyone see the inherent conflict in modeling oneself after the world’s heroes and yet still expecting that the world will not continue to be a world of hero-worshippers and not transformed into a world of wiser folks who roll up their sleeves to serve in their own local communities, thinking globally but acting locally? What if the world’s scapegoats and forgotten folk are God’s role models? If the world is to be healed of violence and its myriad consequences, we need to radically revise whose models we emulate. Long and in many ways has it been already said that to continue to do the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is insane. Changing the window dressing and relabeling the players is not true change that creates the difference in the world we claim to want to see. With what vision are we seeing? The ego’s or the heart’s (so thoroughly denied by ego’s blindness to the truth about love)?
If we are to truly channel our passions into effective action, we must examine the nature of our passions and weed out those that ego introduces to compromise our spiritual guidance system and convert all things spiritual into merely another round of the ego’s bogus alternatives. Yes, spiritual gurus have much to share, but is that all there truly is? Perhaps it is only as good as far as it goes. What if there is more beyond it?
What if the person who needs you most simply wants to play basketball or engage in conversation with you as if he or she has inherent value and does not want to be blown off the court or out of the room by displays of awesome talent, being treated as merely another unfamiliar member of the fan club? Who steps down from the pedestal and not only hugs but takes under one’s wing and befriends for life the one who looks up with faint hope of being truly noticed and valued as an individual when the crowd is so enamored with its heroes? What will it take to learn to love the one whose eyes are downcast because he’s been so often cast down and aside as to no longer feel any personal value?
Let us learn to humble ourselves so as to love those who have been humiliated but have great potential to be lifted up as leaders of humility’s coming revolution. Let the prideful step down and serve the humiliated to known the ghastly reality of loss of social approval. Let reputations be placed at risk and carefully cultivated social success be cast before the throne of grace. Let us intermix the socially approved and socially disapproved to discover the reality of a God who loves both and shines with favor upon those society disfavors. Beyond ego awaits our evolution into humble people of Divine Love who need no other meaning, purpose or direction in life and seek no reward greater than the joy of serving Love’s Cause, because there is no greater reward.