DOJ’s Plans to Continue Unraveling Civil Rights Progress Comes Just A Week After Trump Levies Series of Attacks on LGBT People Washington, DC – Today, Lambda Legal CEO Rachel B. Tiven blasted the Trump administration and …
read morePeople are not poor because they don’t work hard enough. In fact, many of them work harder than the wealthy–they have to, because their very survival depends on it. Vacations and “down time” are a luxury that the poor simply can not afford. Let’s look at Africa: Poverty is extreme, but there is no shortage of brilliant entrepreneurs doing amazing things to keep their families alive. Still, it’s not enough. The full weight of a system that works against them is often too much. Millions and millions of people are just barely surviving, despite their best efforts.
read moreBy Dr. Susan Corso
I like to think of Andrew Harvey as one of the intellectual bad boys of the modern spiritual path. Bless the man, he’s almost always a curve or two ahead of the pack. His latest book, The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism is no exception.
Harvey has been through tough times in his life: Finding his guru, her agonizing betrayal, telling the truth about it to name just a few. He’s been on the Path of the Divine Feminine since before most spiritual seekers had even heard of it.
read moreA beautiful life is the natural result of acknowledging the things we want, developing insights into the habits that disallow them, practicing a new paradigm, and allowing these new realizations to integrate into our daily lives. There’s no secret maneuver to it, but it does take practice, because most of us have learned to hold joy at quite a distance. LifeMath is about bridging that gap using the four key components above.
read moreAlejandro Inarritu drops a depth-charge into the souls of all who experience Carne y Arena. And he cuts a new trail in the desert of Hollywood toward a promised land of kindness and justice. Let us walk it through political action for protecting the undocumented in our midst, and let us follow him in employing this entertainment technology for social and spiritual progress.
read moreThe Founding Fathers were explicit in calling for their politicians to set aside “faction” in favor of the American project. But the singularity of that project was always bullshit, most notably in its equally explicit rejection of a role in the political body for African Americans. […] Now that the fraud has been exposed and there is little, if any, agreement on what the American project is or should be, there is correspondingly less agreement on who ought to lead the nation.
read moreOn November 9, 2016, the United States concluded a blisteringly polarized, vicious political campaign cycle. The results — especially the surprise upset of Hillary Clinton by Donald J. Trump in the presidential election — stunned people as devastating or miraculous, depending on different standpoints.
Concerned about civil rights, immigration, international relations, civility, multiculturalism, and a host of other issues, many people found hope in short supply after the election results came in.
read moreWhen people ask whether healthcare is a right or privilege, they are basically asking whether healthcare is either an act of charity or a luxury. And then if it is an act of charity, they ask whether others are entitled to that charity or not. Furthermore, this question implies that the benefits of healthcare go directly to individuals and not to society as a whole.
read moreThis week the U. S. Supreme Court announced that in the fall it will hear the case “Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.” The case – which will have many of us LGBTQ Americans on pins and needles – will argue the parameters of one’s right to practice their religion and their right to express themselves freely that’s enshrined in the First Amendment.
read moreIn the U.S. the most successful profession football coach by far is a man named Bill Belichick. He is an intelligent man. Over the thousands of football pre-game and post-game press conference he has had across the decades, he has talked about nothing except his team and the recent or up-coming game of his team. This has not made him a darling of the press. In fact it is quite the opposite. Even when there has been another one of those daily “breaking news” social scandals in the nation or in the National Football League—social scandals being the meat and potatoes of what is passed off as journalism today in North America, Belichick will not speak to the press about them, even if the people involved are on his team. He just says, “My job is to be a football coach. All that other stuff will be handled by the League Administration.”
read moreLike so many outspoken Christians before her, Barbara Wendland is either a heretic or a hero.
A heretic in the eyes of some church leaders for questioning traditional views on the Bible and God and criticizing what she sees as sexist, outdated language and customs. A hero to thousands of Christians who struggle with belief and feel lonely in their congregations.
read moreFor many centuries after her death Hildegard was ignored or even ridiculed but today is finally being recognized for her immense contribution to so many areas, including our understanding of our spiritual relationship to the earth—a contribution that touches on key issues faced by our planet in the 21st century, particularly with regard to the environment and ecology.
read moreWhen a middle-aged clinical psychologist begins working with a client describing bizarre mystical experiences, his own world changes radically.
read moreHow many times have you, if you’re waiting or hoping for something to happen in your life, resisted talking about it, thinking you would jinx it? If you’re like me, you don’t want to “jinx” any number of things — from that new job you’re hoping for, to the fact that you haven’t caught a cold yet this year!
When I step back and think about this, I realize it’s irrational. I realize it’s based on doubts about what I believe to be true of God: that God wants us to be fulfilled, living into our calling in the world. God is certainly not sitting out there somewhere, waiting for us to reveal our deepest desires so that God can then make sure not to let those things happen. In fact, that is contradictory to everything I believe about God’s good nature.
read moreWhy do we keep telling ourselves that we can’t do things?
I keep hearing it over and over again: We can’t have . . . Universal health care. Public education that includes college. Higher minimum wage. Sustainable energy. Humane immigration reform. Safe harboring of refugees.
We can’t. We can’t. We can’t.
read moreIslamist attacks on Western democracies pose a deep philosophical and moral problem to anyone sympathising with a progressive, humanist vision of society. The Islamic fundamentalists are targeting the very heart of our democracies and, more importantly, our entire way of life. They are trying to drive a wedge between the Islamic community, which they are supposed to be part of, and the rest of us. We, as a democracy, must not fall into the trap they have set. If we do succumb to their provocations, our entire society will change forever, if it survives at all. It is ironic that the civilisation that brought Greek philosophy and Islamic science to Europe, at the end of the Middle Ages, should now be so determined to bring down the very societies that it helped to create. Whether they succeed or not will depend on our response to their provocations.
read moreSurprises undo us. Most of us dislike being completely fooled. We don’t mind if a spoon bends, and we don’t mind if the signed card is now in a wallet — as long as we were somewhat expecting that to happen. We are comfortable with our expectations being messed with as long as we are expecting our expectations to be messed with. We do not like when things happen far outside our expectations.
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