Spirituality

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Mahatma Gandhi’s famous statement on the nature of God, which was broadcast to America from London in October 1931:
I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing Power or Spirit is God. And since nothing else I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is. And is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see It as purely benevolent.

Rethinking Religion

Ten Spiritual Quotes for 2010

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Below are some of my favorite quotes on a variety of different spiritual themes. I find it useful to reflect upon them as I think about the upcoming year. May you find wisdom and inspiration. Presence
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

Culture

Avatar — It's Not Just about Whiteness

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Yesterday I posted some ecofeminist reflections on Avatar. Today I want to take on the racism issue that several Goddess Scholars as well as bloggers here at Tikkun Daily have raised. Originally I thought this movie was carefully crafted to bring the (mostly) white audience into an understanding that indigenous people already have — the importance, even sacredness, of their world ecology. The hero is Jake Sully, a human who becomes a Na’vi, thereby moving from one world to the other. He begins by betraying the people who ultimately become his own, so it’s not like his first actions are laudable — he’s actually an anti-hero in the beginning, not meant to be liked.

Culture

Avatar — an Ecofeminist Response

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I’ve really been enjoying the Avatar discussion, both here on Tikkun Daily and on the Goddess Scholars List I belong to. I waited until I’d seen the film to read any of the posts, because I didn’t want to prejudice my reaction to it. The GoddessScholars’ discussion reminded me a lot of a Women and Science Fiction class I taught in the 1980s. In my classes I always had a check-in before we began (despite the fact that they were university courses), because then we had deeper discussions. One of the odd things about the Women and Science Fiction class that semester was that there was a sizable minority (about 7 women out of 24) who were big football fans.

Gender and Sexuality

Mary Daly Lives On

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I’ve been reading the GoddessScholars list and surfing the web looking for eulogies of Mary Daly, the radical feminist theologian (from theos, ancient Greek for God) who made thealogy possible (from thea, ancient Greek for Goddess). And in reading through several of them, I’ve been remembering how important she was to me in the early 1970s. At that point in time, I could buy every book on feminism that came out, and I did. But not each one opened up my mind like Beyond God the Father. I can tell from my notes that although it was published in 1973, I must have read it in 1974.

Rethinking Religion

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom is a quotation from Albert Einstein (1875-1955), as translated by Alan Harris:
The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive form – this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness. The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and oldest mainspring of scientific research.

Culture

Positive Outlook: Art and HIV

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“I hope that there is a change in consciousness, but how could it ever be claimed that it came from me? Any change will do, even if it just pisses the person off! That could be a beginning to something great. Right?” — John Neilson
It is the gift and the burden of each of us to live the life we are given.

Culture

Finding Hope in the Newspaper?

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My newspaper this morning gave me hope. And brothers and sisters, that doesn’t happen very often. On the front page, taking up about one third of the sheet, there was an article entitled “Trying to open the ‘inner eye.'” It was a piece that described the new Center for Conscious Living, an offshoot of the Church of Religious Science, which the pastor said is “reinventing the idea of church, with ‘stand you up music,’ meditation, singing, chanting and ‘an inclusive message of self-empowerment.'” Above this article, the top story was about our governor’s clean energy plan, in which 25 percent of the Wisconsin’s energy must come from wind, solar, biomass, or other renewable sources by 2025. My friend Jack Kisslinger, whose website is called Planet for Life, tells me that 25% might be a good number, but it has to be 25% of reduced overall energy consumption. So the governor’s goal is at least a step in the right direction.

Culture

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from poet Mark Siet:
Blessings this year all the way through
Lasting until forever in all that you do. Evoking the highest sent from above
Seeing with clarity and feeling with love. Seeking and finding every good thing
Inside and out may this year to you bring
Nothing but wonderful thoughts to sing
Giving to others to let happiness ring. Simple gifts of love floating on the wing. Over and over the path is set straight
Fearless you travel opening the gate.

Culture

Robert Bergman — On Our Art Gallery

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Reviewing Robert Bergman’s photographic portraits in the January/February issue of Tikkun, Peter Gabel writes:
These breathtaking works of art… bring us face to face with other human beings. But unlike most face-to-face encounters in which the outsides of two faces are visible to each other from within each viewer’s subjective isolation booth, the encounters made possible by Bergman’s photos provide sudden moments of the discovery of mutual Presence, in which we are pulled out of our customary withdrawn state, the key symptom of our illness, and into a sacred contact with the humanity of the other behind and through the image of the face itself. I call these works breathtaking because they unfailingly cause an interruption or disturbance of my breathing as I experience the shock, and the relief, of being brought into an experience of mutual recognition with one after another of the human beings Bergman portrays – and I believe they will do the same for anyone who contemplates them at full size in the gallery. In each case the trappings of a social identity are there that convey a definite impression of a particular life’s circumstances – of one or another legacy of suffering and solitude and also of resilience, determination, and effort – but the accumulation of past influences is in every case transcended by an uncanny illumination, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit that conveys a sense of universal vulnerability and at the same time invincible spiritual strength.