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When four religious leaders walk across the road, it’s not the beginning of a joke. It’s the start of one of the most important conversations in today’s world.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a controversial project that brings fracked crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and eventually to Illinois. The Standing Rock Tribe and people all over the world oppose the project because the pipeline runs under the Missouri river, a source of drinking water for over 18 million people, and pipeline leaks are commonplace.

Americans have been losing confidence in our political and religious institutions since the 1960s. The fundamental reason is well-founded suspicions of dishonesty among political and religious leaders. Outright lying was not always the problem, rather it was failure of courage to acknowledge political and religious truths that became increasingly obvious despite efforts to deny or obfuscate.

Finding peace through social justice.

Recently my grandmother passed away very suddenly from an illness. I cared for her as she died, and my doctor now thinks I have PTSD. I’ve been experiencing crippling panic attacks about dying. I wish that I could say that I am a person of faith.

Physicists, Buddhist monks, and Christian mystics affirm in unity that “we are all connected.” This is fundamental to a spiritual world view. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars, if others are poor. I can never be truly healthy while others languish without healthcare. The opposite of spirituality, a perspective sadly seen not only within secular culture but also at the heart of many religious communities, is to see the world only from the perspective of how to advance our own cause, increase our wealth, comfort and sense of security.

In many religious traditions, God is assumed to be responsive to the needs of believers, and in difficult times, the faithful turn to God for comfort and guidance. When God is viewed as a benevolent protector that can shield us from harm, what happens to faith — and healing — when God fails to provide that protection?

Sermon Video: Scripture Reading – 1 John 4:7-21

What follows is a conversation I had at the Goose last year, with my friend Mona Haydar. Mona is a Syrian-American rapper, poet, activist, practitioner of Permaculture, meditator, composting devotee, mountain girl, solar power lover, and a tireless God-enthusiast.

Mystical activism begins with mystical consciousness: an intentionally awakened, the thought-free, sacred of awareness of the mystic that transforms the experience of our self, our work, and the world itself.

The treatment of “otherness” I experienced from my years of being bussed, I learned had less to do with the people targeted, like myself, and everything to do with the group in power.

About 600 years before the writers of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke penned Jesus’ Parable of the Mustard Seed, Buddha told a parable of a mustard seed.

Most of us did not know what was happening, but we do now. The industrial age offered to humanity comforts and conveniences never before imagined, but what we are now discovering is that the bedrock of this modern civilization is a resource that we have unwittingly and precipitously transformed into what could be the cause of our own destruction.

What we know about the gospel-storyteller that we call Luke is that he wrote close to the end of the first century. Some 50 to 60 years after the life of Jesus of Nazareth; a time when the full force of the mighty Roman Empire was being brought to bear upon the Jewish people and upon the followers of Jesus’ Way of being in the world.

Are you searching for a way to connect children with an authentic spiritual experience that is inter-spiritual, creative and multi-layered?  “A Joyful Path” is truly progressive Christian curriculum that is inclusive, joy-full, compassionate, and intelligent.

If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ve probably gone through the struggle of whether or not you should commit yourself to a life of ministry. Everyone goes through the question sooner or later. Should you quit your day job and become a pastor? What about a full-time missionary? Perhaps closing yourself in your room to pray from morning to night is the answer.

This sermon invites listeners to see the families seeking asylum, not as illegal immigrants but as fully human people who deserve our respect and compassion. These brown children forced into cages are the princes and princesses of Central America.

Work out your faith and renew hope through our film library of spiritual leaders and contemplative pieces.