Culture

Happy New Decade from N. California

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Thanks: Alana and I (the two staff here who do the print magazine production and Tikkun Daily) have both been away the last ten days and it’s been wonderful to see Tikkun Daily continuing on without much attention from us. Thanks to all who posted and to interns who helped behind the scenes before the break. Special thanks to Hamza van Boom who monitored the comments to remove any abusive ones during the critical five days when neither Alana nor I could even do that. (Last week Alana was at work attending a conference, but found she had no wireless access from the conference floor where she was staffing the Tikkun table.)
Song and dance: My wife, Debi, and I took a couple of nights away in Sebastopol, an out-of-the-way bohemian town about the same distance (in driving time and property values) north of San Francisco as our pre-Tikkun home on the edge of the Catskills was from New York City. We felt totally at home there.

Christianity

The Sacred Feminine at the Parliament of World Religions

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I’m surprised that almost none of us blogged about the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) in Melbourne, Australia (12/3 – 12/9). I realize that the US Congress was still discussing the health care bill, Obama had just given his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and the Copenhagen Climate conference was underway. So we all have good excuses. Here at Tikkun Daily, we heard from Dave Belden, who wrote about Rabbi Michael Lerner’s workshop on the spiritual progressive movement. And Rabbi Lerner also wrote about the great disappointment world spiritual leaders at the PWR felt at Obama’s speech in Oslo.

Environment

Good Deeds on a Small Scale No.1

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Genesis
Twenty years ago (already!), I belonged to an activist church with a woman minister, gay leaders, and a social justice agenda. I chose it and similar organizations because my life of getting and spending, work and amusement, politics and personal life, felt empty and insufficient. So I took up a two-stranded way, spiritual and political, protests and potlucks, rallies and fund raisers, services and singing, meetings and celebrations. The church became an important community to me, but I needed further growth. Let me illustrate:
Our church owned and rented a tiny house to a woman and her teenaged son who were not parishioners.

Earth-based Religions

Livin on the Edge

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In the Talmud in the tractate Brachot (Blessings), the rabbis raise the question of what is meant by the mishnaic statement “ha oseh tefilato keva, ain tefilato tachanunim – the one who makes his prayer fixed, his prayer is not one of supplication.” One explanation given is that our prayer lacks supplication when it is not done “eem dimdumei chama – with the reddening of the sun.” While on a peshat level the rabbis may be referring to the need for one to be earnest in his or her prayer in order for it to be supplicatory, I think there may be another level to their words. Perhaps here the rabbis are also emphasizing the importance of being awake to the daily moments of transition, of remaining grounded in ourselves through the discomfort of not knowing what will come next and the fear of no longer being rooted to where we once were. Like the gradual shift as the sun reddens and night gives way to day and day to night, praying eem dimdumei chama may be being offered as a daily practice for us to remain present, conscious, and grounded through life’s changes.

Environment

Imagine a Time When the Eco-Crisis is Over: Another Response

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A few days ago Dave Belden asked us to “Imagine a time when the Eco-Crisis is Over: Then tell us How we Got There”. There are two aspects of “how we got there” – a structural/legal one, and a cultural one. To look at the structural/legal one, it may be good to start by considering a quote from science fiction writer William Gibson, “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed”. Where can we look to find a society that is close to already achieving what Dave has asked us to consider? Perhaps the best place to look is Scandinavia, which includes Denmark and its capital city Copenhagen. The city of Copenhagen is considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world.

Environment

Some Thoughts on the Winter Solstice

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Winter solstice is time of greatest darkness, which of course is why so many cultures have festivals of lights at this time. But in our culture the lights have gotten over the top, with thousands of lights blazing as you walk down the road, and when you get to the mall at the end of the road (all our roads may not lead to Rome, but most lead to a mall) the lights have become so bright there are no longer any shadows. That’s a profound loss. In the shadows lie our deep fears, and this time of the year traditionally allowed us to look at those fears, to name those shadows, and to learn how they connect to us. If we don’t connect to our shadows, we never grow up, and (like my namesake) we can only live in never never land.

Environment

Global Climate Justice Fast – Tomorrow Thursday

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The Climate Justice Fasters in Copenhagen have been doing amazing work promoting climate justice. This Thursday, they will be joined people across the world for a 24 hour fast in solidarity. We are past the time of procrastination! We need to act to solve the climate crisis now! From the website www.climatejusticefast.com.

Buddhism

A Collective Awakening? Buddhist Reflections on Copenhagen

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David Loy is one of the most socially aware Buddhists that I am aware of. I don’t know that much about Buddhism, despite having various friends who are strong Buddhists. When I read Buddhist magazines, I find myself disappointed that there seems to be so little on social change as Buddhist practice and necessity. David Loy, who is Besl Professor of Ethics/Religion and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati, is certainly a great exception (and I am not saying there aren’t many others out there, just that I am not aware of them). We have just posted at Tikkun Current Thinking a piece he has sent us about his response to Copenhagen. In it he calls climate change “the greatest threat ever to our species.”

Environment

Imagining a Time When the Eco-Crisis is Over: A Response

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I’ve decided to take Dave Belden up on his challenge Imagine a Time When the Eco-Crisis is Over: Then Tell Us How We Got There? and address one aspect of how necessary behavioral change was achieved. Imagine if we got to a point where the realized threat of climate change to our own personal health and well-being and the health and well-being of our children was so ingrained in us that we would even consider a carbon footprint tax as a realistic revenue source for California? What if we got to a place that our understanding of ecology was such a given that a carbon footprint tax would even be popular and acceptable to the bipartisan leadership of this country with almost 1/2 of the Republicans supporting it? Imagine an editorial in the Los Angeles Times that reads:
“Raising taxes in California these days is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, in their effort to eliminate a $x-billion budget shortfall, the state’s politicians are discussing dismantling California’s main welfare program, eliminating the health insurance program for poor children and decimating education without any apparent debate on raising the income or sales tax.

Environment

Imagine a Time When the Eco-Crisis is Over: Then Tell Us How We Got There?

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The Copenhagen Climate Conference is under way. Our focus is on what can be achieved this week. But I want to ask you, the reader, this:
Do you have any vision in mind for how we might really get past this huge crisis about our human behavior on this planet? Imagine a time when there is only mopping up to do, but everyone agrees that the big crisis is past. We have learned our place on the planet.