Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/arlenegoldbard/page/7/)
My big TV-watching time is in the mornings while I exercise. I save up episodes of series I’d never give 100 percent of my attention, usually detective shows (and never medical ones). But there is one family drama in my queue: Parenthood. Yesterday morning I caught up with the final episode. As the characters’ lives fast-forwarded through the finale, my tears started to fall.
It’s easy to think of spiritual practice as something separate from ordinary life: the time one spends on a meditation cushion or chanting prayers. But for me the most powerful spiritual practices are things I seldom put in that category. Is facilitating a discussion a spiritual practice?
In response to world leaders marching in solidarity with victims of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, many are calling out the hypocrisy of these leaders’ support of freedom of expression that contradicts their own policies towards journalists in their countries.
I spent decades denying I was an optimist before copping to it, and now – instead of trying to live the label down, I find myself trying to live up to it. I’d say this year has left me with an acute case of whiplash.
The demonstrators who are stopping traffic, occupying public spaces, and marching through busy shopping streets want to disrupt business-as-usual in the hope of awakening conscience and action.The tags for every demonstration at Ferguson Response tell the story: #WeCantBreathe, #ThisStopsToday, #JusticeforEricGarner, #JusticeforMikeBrown.
I’ve been a fan of the proposal to make police wear body cameras, but yesterday’s decision not to charge New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner has reminded me to question my own confidence in documentary truth.
This is the talk I delivered last night at Bowery Poetry in New York City, on the occasion of the inauguration of the first 22 members of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture’s National Cabinet.
Members of Congress didn’t wake up one day and say, “I think it’s about time to extend voting rights to women.” We the people did that, and when enough of us made our voices heard, laws changed.
What has been consistent since my first blog (possibly my first breath) is the conviction that we can do better, that cultivating awareness and agency can effectuate the shift.
This past weekend, activists streamed into Ferguson, Missouri, for Ferguson October, a “weekend of resistance” comprising actions and events “to build momentum for a nationwide movement against police violence.”