art

I Would Plant My Apple Tree

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A few days ago the image of a green ribbon came across my facebook news feed. The text went like this:
The pink ribbons have always bugged me…the idea of putting the energy and effort of well-meaning citizens behind “the search for a cure for cancer” just irritates me, because let’s face it, we know what causes cancer, and therefore we can do better than cure it, we can prevent it! Maybe not 100%, but we can take it back to the modest rates that previous generations of human beings enjoyed…If you really want to make a difference in the war against cancer, forget about those ridiculous pink ribbons. Use the power of your wallet and your ballot to insist that the government step up and do its job in regulating the industrial agriculture sector. It makes sense that people are focusing on ribbons in the wake of all the controversy about the Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood.

Culture

Create a Prayer Breakfast for the 99 Percent

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The local chapter of NSP in Washington, D.C. has been involved in creating an alternative to the standard conservative prayer breakfast that takes place each year, and we are inviting you to do the same in your community. We’ve been working with Occupy Faith D.C. to create “the People’s Prayer Breakfast.” You can do the same in your area of the country. It doesn’t have to be this week – take your time and make sure you do outreach to Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Ba’hai, Sikh, Wicca, Buddhist, Quaker, Unitarian, Religious Science, and all other possible communities of faith to get them involved in the planning. The breakfast can be a moment to affirm support for the 99 percent, opposition to all forms of oppression, and solidarity in the struggle for real human community based on the NSP’s “New Bottom Line.”

Christianity

A Meaningful Christmas

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Nothing could be less celebratory than having to celebrate. Imagine someone holding a gun to your head: “Sing Christmas carols! And sing like you mean it!” Where does celebration come from? What does it mean? I’m inclined to think that any word connected to “celebrity” has to be suspect. 
The dictionary, source of so much wisdom, tells me something unexpected: “to perform with appropriate rites and ceremonies; solemnize, observe, commemorate, sound the praises of, make known publicly.” No wonder we can feel it’s a heavy burden.

General News

Chanukka: On Jews, Greeks and Germans

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…the cultural choices one must choose between can be evaluated by criteria: by their effect upon the spirit.There are cultural and existential choices that bring hearts together, and there are those that lead to arrogance and aggression. The same great modes of thinking that bring about the greatest steps forward in human development can sometimes be accompanied by ideas that lead to the greatest suffering. Chanukka is meant to be about choosing the former, and rejecting the latter…

Christianity

The Occupy Movement and Sacred Space

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If the spirit of Occupy Wall Street and its home at “Liberty Square” is to survive and have impact, occupiers need a larger understanding of what sacred space is and what it isn’t. Sacred space can be anywhere, any time. It is by definition beyond time and place.

art

Soup & Bread: The Church of The Hideout Cookbook

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Sometimes even an atheist needs a community soup kitchen. This winter, I will probably need one, and so will many many of my fellow Americans. This winter, when the thin veil of November leaves has finally come down in Chicago, the sand is banked on the beaches against the lake shore wind and the dark comes early, I will be happy for a bowl of soup and a place to eat it where I feel welcome. Like so many this year, for me the recession is grinding down hard, and the things that held me together are beginning to fray, just a little and at the edges, but still, the possibility of coming unraveled hangs over all endeavors while the nights get colder. Like the people occupying parks the whole country over, I am running out of faith in governments and institutions to provide a little grace and shelter while we all wait out the economic troubles we’ve got to endure.

Culture

Photo Essay: Sacred Spaces at Occupy Oakland

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Buddhist monks in orange robes chant in one corner of the Occupy Oakland encampment. Across the plaza, a reverend in a rainbow stole reads Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Six Principles of Nonviolence.” A block away, candles burn on an unorthodox altar to the death of capitalism.

Christianity

"This is What Religion Looks Like!"

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Anyone driving through Madison, Wisconsin in April and May would have recognized those nine beeps of car and truck horns, ubiquitous throughout the city: This is what democracy looks like! The mainstream media focused on unions, of course, public and private, coming together in unexpected solidarity, but not everyone realized that spiritual and religious groups played a significant role as well. And here’s something that will challenge your prejudices: evangelical groups were among them. Together with the religious organizations that form the usual progressive “suspects,” they chanted their own variation on a theme: This is what religion looks like. Houses of Worship: the new “public” spaces for political action?

Christianity

5 Myths Atheists Believe about Religion

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Despite their emphasis on reason, evidence and a desire to see through false truth claims, many atheists hold surprisingly ill-informed beliefs about religion. Many of these myths go unquestioned simply because they serve the purpose of discrediting religion at large. They allow for the construction of a straw man i.e. a distorted and simplistic representation of religion which can be easily attacked, summarily dismissed and ridiculed. Others who genuinely believe these false claims merely have a limited understanding of the ideas involved and have never thoroughly examined them. But, myths are myths and they should be acknowledged for what they are.

Christianity

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Rev. Sarah Ray. She writes about her personal experience with God and gives insight to how we can find love in God, others, and ourselves. Looking into the Eyes of God
by Sarah Ray
Will the Universe implode if I tell you this? This ultimate secret? I hope not.